Britta E. Buhlmann, "Interfaces" 1996
Britta E. Buhlmann, Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern, text excerpt from the catalog “Schnittstellen” (1996)
Image: QU 5-2010 | granodiorite quartz veined | carved, sandblasted, brushed | 10 x 11 x 12 cm and 12 x 13 x 14 cm
Dr. Britta E. Buhlmann, “Interfaces” 1996
Jochen Kitzbihler creates references. Material, space and time are his most important working principles. For the artist, a sculpture is a position, a station in space. It has to be questioned and redesigned in every situation. Unlike is often the case with large-format stone works, Jochen Kitzbihler does not regard his works as one-off settings and therefore not as something final. Although his voluminous and weighty stones stand in stark contrast to Lissitzky's delicate sculptures, his approach is closer to Lissitzky's understanding of sculpture as a process of becoming. Some of Kitzbihler's sculptures appear - even if they are defined by the museum space as finished ideas - as if they are in the process of being created. Perhaps the artist will make a different decision in the next room situation. In any case, he does not determine a value between raw sides patinated and cut in fine shades of color or those with or without traces of drilling or marking. Traces of work are left just as visible as ageing processes, oxidation and damage, which more or less unintentionally show the stone to be vulnerable. A peculiarly silent continuity becomes perceptible. Kitzbihler makes use of a minimalist formal language as far as possible. He works with the characteristics of the material and brings them out in a special way through minor interventions. Turning, twisting, tilting - the planes are set in motion. Cause and effect remain open in this process. Right and wrong are no longer criteria. Instead, a field of tension is created in which relativity becomes clear as one of the basic conditions of Jochen Kitzbihler's work. Like the menhirs and obelisks of old, his works convey a spatial and sensual experience and, like these, define spaces of calm and stillness in which spirituality can unfold.