In this show of Hubert Kiecol’s sculpture, drawings, and prints, the sculpture Paradies (Paradise, 1992) was the central work. This work consisted of a white iron grate resting on a concrete pedestal. The title seemed not to correspond to this massive cage of iron and concrete, and while traditional concepts of paradise indicate happiness, Kiecol’s work merely defined the space that a standing person requires. The paradise he erected in the middle of the gallery was empty, and it defined a spiritual place, a realm of the imagination. The concept of paradise is a free, undefined space that can be experienced as an intellectual territory. Kiecol has used the idea of the complete synthesis of sculpture and space in his earlier works, which follow a Romantic tradition much in the same vein as Caspar David Friedrich’s landscape paintings, which succeed in depicting the problematic relationship between God and man. And Kiecol in his reduction of forms to their essence awakens the impression of a sacred meaning in sculpture, and the large-format drawings point in this direction as well. Made with black chalk, they represent a portal and hence can be connected to the Romantic vision of the window or gate. Although these drawings are self-contained works, within the context of this exhibition they became elements pointing toward the central sculpture. In Kiecol’s reduction of works to fundamental criteria, he offered the viewer a formal complexity and almost transcendental expressive ability in the best tradition of the Romantic image.

—Peter Funken

Translated from the German by Charles V. Miller.