Balkenhol in Hamburg: Silent observers on land and water

“Four men on buoys”

The artist's sculptures floating on the Elbe Stephan Balkenhol are among the most famous publicly available works of art in Hamburg. At the beginning of the 1990s, the city of Hamburg commissioned four sculptures from Balkenhol, which were then mounted on shallow water barrels on the Elbe (Övelgönne), Süderelbe, Außenalster and in the Serrahn in Bergedorf. Because wind and weather have severely affected the men, who were originally made of oak wood, Balkenhol has remanufactured all figures from aluminum so that they are permanently preserved for the city and its visitors.

It took the artist around a month for each figure. Externally, the buoy men are no different from their predecessors. They are middle-aged men in black pants, white shirts and with a neutral facial expression. They look into the distance and leave the viewer plenty of room for interpretation. Or how Balkenhol once formulated it:

“The people I portray are very indifferent in expression. When you look at them, you might think that they might start doing something the next minute. To smile — or not. And I find that much more exciting and lively than if I were to nail the character down to an expressive expression now.”

Each year, from spring to late autumn, the sculptures are released into the water in their original places. In winter, men will continue to be pulled out of the water with their swimming barrels to protect them from ice.

“Man and woman”

There are two more Balkenhol bronze figures in front of the Central Library, which were commissioned by the City of Hamburg: “Man and woman” - the sculptures of a man and a woman who rise a good five meters in height with their extra long legs. As is so often the case with Balkenhol, the man is wearing black pants and a white shirt. His companion a short red dress. They turn their backs on the entrance to the building and look out into the distance, seemingly disinterested.

Since the library moved to Arno-Schmidt-Platz in 2004, the bronze couple has stood at this location “as a matter of course” and has probably already made many passers-by think.

“Giraffe with man”

One of Balkenhol's giraffe sculptures has been standing at the intersection in front of Hagenbeck Zoo since 2001: “Giraffe with Man” shows a small man clinging with arms and legs to the neck of a giraffe that is almost nine meters high. The sculpture cost a total of 560,000 DM, of which the cultural authority financed 60,000 DM and the Hagenbeck zoo the remaining 500,000 DM to present itself as a cultural sponsor with this self-promotion.

But over the decades, enthusiasm for culture has given way to harsh criticism. Since the skin tone of the bronze sculpture has darkened due to age, some politicians and visitors no longer saw it as a cheerful eye-catcher, but a nuisance. In 2020, various press media Then the question: Does the sculpture show a zoo visitor who enthusiastically hugs his favorite animal and is therefore a symbol of good cooperation between humans and animals? Or is a man of color portrayed here who is presented as exotic attractions - i.e. originates from a racist context?

Stephan Balkenhol himself commented on the criticism and said that the insinuation that the work was racist was absurd. The man would not be black at all, but white and the sculpture would simply have had to be cleaned to return to the original bronze color.

In addition, experts of the artist know that his figures are always completely neutral “everymen” who deliberately refrain from depicting individual characteristics. Balkenhol doesn't want to make a statement with his work, but rather to open up a space of thought for the viewer: “In doing so, I wanted to create paintings that — apart from figuration — were out of any category: no explicit recourse to tradition, no messages of any kind, no strong expressivity. ”

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