From 30th November 2023
Knight’s Hall | Museum Ancient Cultures, Hohentuebingen Castle
Opening hours: Wed to Sun, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. | Thursday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m
On public holidays the museum is usually open like on Sundays.
Ancient canon in dialogue with contemporary sculpture and the latest technology
The ‘secret’ placement of the Sisyphos plaster cast by the artist Matthias Kunisch to the permanent exhibition of the Classical Archeology Collection is the physical starting point of a large-scale work concept, which, in addition to the sculpture on display, includes monumental fragments and an elaborate virtual world of experience in which visitors can view the work and can explore its individual parts from a completely new perspective.
Matthias Kunisch has been working on the subject of Sisyphos since the 1980s, when the first models were created. Individual elements, concepts and models of the work emerged in repeated attempts. In the central figure on which the casting is based, initially made of clay and steel, Kunisch successfully takes mimicry to the extreme in form and materiality: While the Hellenistic Sisyphos is unparalleled in the ancient canon – the motif of the “eternally failing optimist” was realized extremely rarely in classical sculpture (see the article by Prof. Dr. A. Heinemann) – the question of whether Sisyphos successfully pushes the stone, breaks it or even enjoys the divine competition remains unanswered in the depiction: Sisyphos just touches the stone just like that, gently, almost tenderly, while his entire monumental body trembles with tension.
Matthias Kunisch designed a monumental sculpture that stimulates a new discussion about a sculptural language that has been avoided for decades. What does monumental art mean today?
The larger-than-life sculpture is the visual model and the starting point of one imaginary monumental sculpture, whose individual fragments (e.g. a foot, the loins etc.) measure about 3m. In the virtual exhibition space, the figure and individual fragments can be explored in all their three-dimensionality.
The approximately 12m high and 30m long monumental sculpture will never physically exist as a whole. The individual fragments, on the other hand, can be purchased as digital art objects (NFTs) or as materialized, real objects. This creates very individual Sisyphean pieces of work, because the buyers gain control over the form, feel and shape of the work by individually determining the fragment and target material for materialization. But Matthias Kunisch goes even further: By purchasing a digital fragment, owners also gain control over the 3D file itself and are therefore invited to continue using it, staging it – reproducing it?
The digital Sisyphus literally becomes the starting point of its absolute multiplication, its global mobilization, its democratization, if you like.