Holger Walter

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Holger Walter (born September 26, 1968 in Lauffen am Neckar ) is a German sculptor and draftsman. He lives and works in Berlin.

Life

From 1990 to 1996 he studied sculpture at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe with Hiromi Akiyama at Scheibenhardt Castle and became a master student . In 1994 he received a scholarship for Moscow , where he was a guest at the Surikov Institute for two months . He received a DAAD scholarship for Japan and worked at Tama Art University Tokyo from 1997 to 1998 . From 2010 to 2011 he studied East Asian Studies at the University of Heidelberg . He had lectureships and lectures at HafenCity University Hamburg , Tama Art University Tokyo and Musashino Art University Tokyo, among others. Holger Walter is a member of the German Association of Artists In 2001 he married Tomoyo Okamoto. They have three children together.

plant

His works developed out of complex perceptions. This includes topographical and geological observations, the experience of uncontrollable forces in nature such as water, ice, earthquakes and volcanic activities. Questions about home and identity , digital revolution and poetry flow into his work. Familiar imagery and sensory perceptions from childhood connect him to the lyricist Friedrich Hölderlin . Works emerged that can be described as artistic dialogue with Holderlin. The sculptures are created through clear and radical interventions in resistant material. Stone sculptures partially retain their natural break skin and crusts and look like cutouts that have been broken out of a larger context. For his ideas he uses a wide variety of stones from all over the world, with which his ideas can be most convincingly implemented. Other materials such as glass and steel are also occasionally used. Walter has realized some works in public spaces, such as the almost 4 meter high "Altar on the Field" in Langenseifen, around which a wooden chapel in the shape of a dome was designed and built after its installation in 2005.

The works on paper are an important part of his artistic work as an independent body of work. They arise analogously to the themes in the sculpture. With floating motifs that seem detached from the floor, they bring a poetic aspect into his work. Characteristic of all his artistic expressions is a decisive attitude and idiosyncratic design language.

Installation Riesa

In 1992 in Riesa , Saxony , at an international workshop, an installation made of steelworker's gloves was created, which were lying around in large numbers in the closed steelworks. “I was in the steel mill. Black flags welcomed us and a few workers from the former 14,000 were with cutting torches on the dismantling employs their own workplace. The hall floor was littered with thrown away gloves. ”The image of this dismantling burned into his memory.

Effusions 1992–1996

In a quarry in the Vulkaneifel , sculptures were created from collected lava lumps. The type of machining should be as simple as possible, only a hammer and two chisels were used. He called this group of works effusions . At Scheibenhardt Castle, he had a 5-ton block of lava tipped onto the academy's meadow, directly in front of the painters' studios. He worked the tough stone with self-forged iron over several years, in a very laborious way. This direct and primitive approach to the stone was inspired by the 1989 film Black Rain by director Shōhei Imamura , in which the stone-hewing and mocked neighbor boy Yuichi appears.

Drifting sculptures / Rheinhafen, Japan, Korea 1997–2002

His first studio, immediately after graduating from the academy, was in the Rheinhafen Karlsruhe . The harbor basin was frozen over in 1997 and the ice cover was broken by an icebreaker. This is where the photo series of ice floe pictures was created, like lava sculpture on ice floe on the Rhine . He placed a sculpture on a drifting ice floe and sent it on a journey with an undetermined destination.

During his one-year Japan scholarship from 1997 to 1998, the work Tokyo Sculpture was created from gray Fukushima stone . Everyday life in the restless mega-city of Tokyo motivated him to do some steel floor sculptures, such as the 6-part work drift and high tide . He observed the young art and gallery scene in Tokyo and, in addition to numerous contacts with artist personalities in Japan, had an encounter with Issey Miyake and César Baldaccini . He visited Lee Ufan in his studio in Kamakura . On the island of Miyako-jima , the sculpture About Presence - Absence was created in 1998 for the park of the German cultural village Ueno .

In 1999 he moved into a studio in Karlsruhe's Oststadt and was invited to South Korea in 2000 , where he realized the Gate Wall sculpture made of black Korean granite for the Seolbong Park in Icheon . In 2001 he was commissioned to design a large sculpture that defines the new center of the Stuttgart Collegiate Church and, as a central altar, should be compatible with liturgical needs. He realized the approx. 4-ton sculpture made of a Swiss sandstone monolith in a natural stone factory on Upper Lake Zurich .

Tunnel, cave, section 2003–2008

He received invitations to art in building competitions in Germany. From 2005 onwards, sculptures on the subjects of caves, tunnels and sections were created . He was founded in 2005 by the Ev. Bärstadt parish commissioned to develop the idea for a sculpture as part of an art chapel project that would determine the location of a future chapel. This altar in the field was set up in September 2005 in Langenseifen , Hesse . The architecture of the chapel was designed by the architect Barbara Schmid from EKHN Darmstadt's building department and inaugurated in 2012. In 2007 he was commissioned to create the sculpture Lichthöhle for the room of silence in the Wuppertal- Dönberg hospice . From 2008 he worked on sculptures with a vertical orientation. The 3.30 meter high sculpture, a large section of a basalt lava column, was created in the winter of 2008/2009 in a quarry in Mayen .

Aus_Grabungen, Hidden Spaces 2009–2010

During this time, small sculptures such as 3-room and 4-room were created that explore the inner space possibilities of stone blocks and had similarities with architectural room models. At the invitation of HafenCity University Hamburg , he gave courses on the subject of excavating space in the 2009/2010 winter semester . In 2010, at the invitation of the Ann Wolff Collection Berlin foundation, the first massive glass sculpture was created. It is entitled Inner Dimension . The glass sculpture allows a hidden space within the block to be perceived diffusely, depending on the light situation in the surrounding space.

Waves, currents, rhythms, ice age stones from 2011

Flat floor and wall sculptures with sharp undercuts were created. Depending on the light source, a strong shadow effect is created on the sculptures . The rhythmic forms relate to waters and currents. 2011–2012 he dealt with Ice Age debris in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . For the fortified church Gollmitz in the Uckermark , a field stone building from the 13th century, he created a spatial sculpture from a large ice age granite boulder.

Approaches to Hölderlin's visual worlds

In 2013, at the Goethe-Institut Nancy in France, he first showed the results of his artistic dialogue with poems by Friedrich Hölderlin and their joint birthplace on the Neckar . He tries to find a contemporary connection to Hölderlin's poetry with visual means and to meet his highest artistic demands. The approach to his world of thoughts and images takes place in a concrete and sensual way. In 2013, fragments of Hölderlin's river poems were composed of works such as “the fettered stream” and “the rage of the streams”.

Awards

Public collections

Solo exhibitions (selection)

literature

  • Martin Zuska: “Holger Walter” at Bruchsal Castle, text: “About being shaped and forming”. Ed. State. Academy d. Image. Arts Karlsruhe 1996.
  • Hans Gercke: "Der Berg", Heidelberger Kunstverein, 2002, p. 528 f., Kehrer Verlag, Interv. Christine Breitschopf slightly falsified reproduction, ISBN 3-933257-99-9 .
  • Axel Heil, Harald Klingelhöller for the AdBK: "150 Years of the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe". Edited by ADBK, 2004. p. 235. Cropped work ISBN 3-89929-045-3 .
  • Hans Gercke, Ursula Merkel: Holger Walter, Aus_Grabungen, stone paper room. 80 pages. Edited by Walter, Knecht, Burster, self-published, Karlsruhe 2009.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e Hans Gercke: Holger Walter: "Aus_Grabungen ...". Karlsruhe 2009.
  2. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: Members "W" / Holger Walter (accessed December 30, 2016)
  3. ↑ Hans Gercke: Holger Walter: "Aus_Grabungen ...". Karlsruhe 2009, p. 74.
  4. ↑ a b Didier Hemardinouer: Salut (fraternel) à Hölderlin, L'Est Républicain. May 30, 2013
  5. ↑ a b Obo: At the beginning there is the altar stone. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. September 10, 2005, No. 211, p. 70.
  6. ↑ Dresdner Morgenpost of August 8, 1992: Riesa: Art blooms in the Stalmine.
  7. ↑ Thorsten Stötzer: Altar stone impresses Icelanders. In: Wiesbadener Tagblatt, November 21, 2007.
  8. ↑ a b c www.holger-walter-atelier.de
personal data
SURNAME Walter, Holger
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sculptor and draftsman
DATE OF BIRTH 26th September 1968
PLACE OF BIRTH Lauffen am Neckar