Sisyphos (1980-2023)

Major academic study of Mr. Sisyphos based on 43 fragments in relative relation to the universe (1980-2023)

1980-2023, larger-than-life plaster cast and 12x30m digital artwork, virtual showroom

Sisyphos should be viewed as a comprehensive body of work that was created over several decades. In addition to various models, preliminary studies, drawings and individual monumental fragments, the group of Sisyphos works includes the sculpture completed in 2023. The synthetic resin casting will be on display in the plaster cast collection at Hohentübingen Castle from November 30, 2023. The somewhat larger-than-life sculpture is the starting point of a fragmented monumental sculpture that can only be made visible as a whole in digital space.

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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.

Parts of the Sisyphus work complex were exhibited in 2021 as part of the Esslingen Art Association’s “Museum on Trial” exhibition in the Villa Merkel in Esslingen. Martin Mezger writes about this work in the Esslinger Zeitung on April 16, 2021:

“The real artist of the hour is Matthias Kunisch, who has been artistically tracing the myth of Sisyphus, the eternally failing optimist, for several years, but who most visibly gets to the heart of Corona’s current situation in the invisible show. In a colossal Renaissance style, Kunisch created fragmentary giant feet made of Styrofoam as a light and cheap imitation of marble, just as massive the mural with the quadruple sequence of the damned man rolling his stone. In a small sculpture he rolls it over the Villa Merkel. Classic humanism, classicist aesthetics, senseless heroism come together turns into bitter irony, where the monumental can become puny and the small can become devastating.”

A virtual tour of the exhibition can be seen here: Watch the film on Vimeo (about Matthias Kunisch from min. 5:40)