Statement

Belfagor is a hybrid of space shuttle and sarcophagus. The attempt to sculpturally capture the space around a figure, to give an outline not to matter but to nothingness. There are two versions of Belfagor. The first was hand-carved from shell limestone in 2013, while the second was computer-designed and milled from polyurethane in 2015. Although the forms are very similar, the feel is very different.

I like to use clay in my work, which, of course, is a product of the earth. When I first came to Luxor, the significance of the Nile altered my view of nature. Nature had never seemed so unique to me as it did in Egypt. I thought it had been invented there and that the rest of the world had received a pale imitation of it. I suppose this is because living in an industrialized environment has an impact on both nature and humans that I was not fully aware of before. Besides, the clay there is exceptional. So, what was I supposed to do? I started reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The cyborg Hel in Metropolis, humanoid robots versus data driven AI, the idea that humans are being swallowed up by a data octopus—these themes have been meandering through my practice since the beginning. For me, the current era represents a paradigm shift. Could this be a repeat of the upheavals that preceded the First World War? I'm not sure, but I gain a lot of interesting insights from examining artists' work from that era. 


Phoebe Lesch

In 2020, I was awarded the Sculpture Prize by the City of Ebersberg, a small city north of Munich, Germany. This included a show at the Kunstverein, as well as an exhibition of the work in public space. Once again, I created a narrative around the…

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Wie Belfagor über die Alpen kam