Stefan Rinck

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LA VILLA STUDIO visited Stefan Rinck in the famous sculpture workshop in Wedding, which was expanded in 1985 by the bbk berlin with funds from the Senate in the listed former Arnheim safe factory. We were guided through the dusty space with high ceilings, passing along stone processing machines and industrial cranes that keep Stefan Rinck's cute stone monsters captive in their nets.

 

The brutality of the material contrasts with the cartoonish imagery that Stefan uses in his artistic practice. The stone turns into feathers, fur and scales that envelop fable beings created by Stefan Rinck. They have wise fangs and claws, reminding of monsters within the medieval tradition, which combine human and non human elements and appear rather cute then menacing.

 

These beasts, as if assembled from several animalic body parts, call on the viewer, to  put the fragmented together into the whole in order to understand its meaning, to be able to “read” the monster. Because each of the monsters is a minute physiological study, setting forth some state of the soul and illustrating the combinations of passions which may co-exist in a single consciousness.

 

This restoration reveals invisible interpretation processes: piecing together requires separation, categorization and reinforcement of boundaries, even as it traverses them. Multiplicity of meanings may not disturb interpretation but demonstrate and thus enabling a review of the way we do and find something.

 

Stefan Rinck's clay beings demonstrate differences at many levels - they threaten and confirm the norm in body, culture and language and embody differences already within the norm. In their biting bestiality, the works offer an opportunity to see and feel more than we can imagine and describe.

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Explore Stefan`s work in the LA VILLA STUDIO collection.