Waymarks I
2020
Metal, lacquered
230 x 100 x 25 cm
It began with the Pausa sculpture (cf. Work of the Quarter 04.2019), which Andreas Felger designed for the listed site of the former Pausa textile factory in Mössingen and had erected there in 2015. The upwardly open double P of the composition unmistakably refers to the P in “Pausa” and the ambiguous relationship between line (graphic), writing and sculpture becomes visible to the viewer.
The idea for this sculpture has inspired the artist to create other designs for public spaces in and around Mössingen. They are located in different places: at Löwensteinplatz, a stone’s throw away from the Pausa sculpture, elsewhere in the city and also on the small country road that leads from Belsen, Felger’s home, to Bad Sebastiansweiler, where his studio is located. All five sculptures have one thing in common: they stand in the green, their base is largely covered by grass, which gives them the impression that they have grown up there like plants.
When one approaches the abstract metal sculptures, the initially closed form opens up in the literal sense. Two parallel plates appear pictorial and relate to each other like foreground and background. In the foreground, linear forms are cut out, revealing the monochrome background. Between them, the gap allows the light to play, to cast shadows, from line to surface, and to keep light and shadow moving, as the sun, ‘wanders’. The two surfaces form a space that is at once permeable and well-defined, combining transparency and sculptural form. At the same time, they reveal themselves with patterns of geometric regularity that, from a distance, refer back to the Pausa textile production in whose fabric repertoire they originate. Andreas Felger’s visual arts – drawing, painting, sculpture and spatial installation – combine to create an overall form that is as subtle as it is elemental.
Text by Marvin Altner