‘Something is Happening’ is definitely one of the nicest exhibitions that can now be visited in the Netherlands

‘Who is Van Hout’, psychiatrist Jan Foudraine wondered in the title of his influential book from 1971. Well: almost all figures on Stephan Balkenhol’s exhibition in the Kunsthal in Rotterdam. They are unquestionably made of wood, there are chips where is minced meat and most figures have wood -colored skin. They are often also a bit woody. Foudrain’s question can be asked here without a negative connotation, because nobody seems to mind. Here you are ‘proud to be van wood’. Something is happening Is definitely one of the nicest exhibitions that can currently be visited in the Netherlands. On two elongated floors, an attractive overview is offered of the painted wooden statues and reliefs that Stephan Balkenhol has made in the past fifteen years.

The German sculptor, born in 1957, was trained in the heyday of concept art and minimalism, but traveled his own track. He opted for figuration and for old -fashioned heels, in wood because marble went too slowly to him, and then he also painted his sculptures with, for example, whites, lip red and hair color. You can’t get much classic: the Greeks and Romans already polychromed their images.

Balkenhol’s choice of subject also has something classic. There are a Perseus and a Prometheus in Rotterdam and there is a naked Hermafrodite on the floor. There is a series of sculptures and reliefs of the signs of the zodiac. In one of those reliefs, a Capricorn stands on a rock point over a foggy mountain valley: a nod to Caspar David Friedrich’s famous walker above the Nevelzee. Bozetto (2024) is a stone figure image without arms and head, but then in painted wood, and next to two modern female figures is an unpainted basic Primeval woman (2017) who reminds us of the Venus of Willendorf. Art history is toys in Balkenhol’s hands.

At the same time, the images are unmistakably contemporary. His figures have a just not academically correct anatomy, the finish always remains fairly coarse and clothing and hairstyles are now, not from the past. The men are always the same man at Balkenhol. He has had the same tough features for about thirty years: feline eyes, a wide nose and full lips. He usually wears a white shirt that is tight in black trousers. The women are different, but also always clever to see and contemporary dressed neatly. What makes all those beautiful wooden people in the exhibition extra sexy is that their formal clothing is always alternated with naked.

Unadguated figures

So far the cast. Because really captivating, Balkenhol’s work is made by what he gives these figures, or rather: let it undergo. It is not for nothing that the exhibition is called Something is happening. They remain unadvaged to it, but in the meantime a man has a revolver in his hand, Perseus is posing with the head of Medusa, someone looks outside between the sharp teeth of a shark suit and there is a gentleman who you only see a scorpion tail in the second instance. For some figures, the metamorphosis has gone even further: they have the head of a goat, a bull or a male duck. And the most beautiful human animal in the exhibition is the office man in white shirt, hands in the pockets, which has been given the head of a hedgehog. Man has become a hedgehog here, or the hedgehog a kind of person, such as at Toon Tellegen – can this fantastic image please on the cover of his collected animal stories?

There is everything to think and read about Balkenhol’s work, but you don’t have to feel excluded if you don’t. In all mystery, the images are primarily visual and not conceptual, not pregnant with meanings and also not politically engaged. All people have the same wooden skin color and such a hermaphrodite is simply a given, no statement about gender.

On the other hand, Balkenhols seems to be going back to old traditions never culture pessimistic or reactionary. Everything is what it is, sometimes weird and sometimes just ordinary, and in the end the question is how big the difference is. Balkenhol’s figures keep their heads cool, even if that head has become an animal head. As far as they overwhelm, they do it in a calm, gentle way. They are good for a smile who continues to turn up days after the exhibition visit.

To share





Mail the editors