Wilhelm Klotzek
SKULPTRINEN

Wilhelm Klotzek deals with the naming of things, with the name itself as well as the act of naming. His sculptural works play with the intervening space between the object and its name.

Bischofsmützen (bishop’s caps), Charlottenburger (Charlottenburger) and Knochen (bones), three German words that at first sight seem to have no connection, are in the technical jargon of paviours terms for sidewalk materials. The pentagonal stones on the border of a diagonally installed pavement are called Bischofmützen. Pavers aren’t just called pavers – the paving workers in Berlin call them Charlottenburger. And the bone is an interlocking stone.

When a common term gets a new meaning in a technical language, one calls this a semantic change, a widening or extension of meaning: the range of meanings of a word increases so that it can be used in more contexts than before. That happens for example when a word for something so far unknown is needed or a euphemistic or pictorial expression for something abstract. Klotzeks fascination for this longing for integrating cumbersome and inanimate things into the personal sphere is reflected in his euphemistic dealing with bulky material.

With the SKULPTRINEN Wilhelm Klotzek continues his play with semantic change, extension, amplification, widening and intensification. He questions the need of personalizing things by dealing with the relation of name and separated subject.

Wilhelm Klotzek was born in Berlin in 1980.
He is studying sculpture at the Kunsthochschule Weissensee and UdK Berlin.
We are presenting his first solo exhibition.