Events

Günther Förg’s characteristically monolithic bronze steles follow his experiments with reliefs initiated in 1983, marking a significant increase in scale. Often suggestive of figures, Förg’s steles emerge from their bases in varying forms, both thick and slender. These forms were moulded from plaster – as per Förg’s other works in bronze. Indeed, revealing ridges, scratches, streaks and hatching, their tactile surfaces convey an intriguing duality between the solid and the malleable. Recalling Förg’s solo exhibition at Galerie Max Hetzler in 1988, which comprised bronze reliefs, steles and masks, curator and writer Lisa Le Feuvre likened them to ‘ancient stone slabs’, which ‘appeared to grow from the ground, like a forest encouraging us to look up, to feel the physical presence of looking’, before concluding: ‘Firmly planted, these steles seemed to be monumental markers connected to the body, or headstones – that reminder of the limits of a life.’