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Biografie Walter Hellenthal Andreas Beaugrand Art is always a way of approaching intellectual and spiritual questions concerning human existence. Walter Hellenthal admires the philosophy and mental legacy of Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464) who believed that it was not possible for the human mind, despite all its scholarship, to have a true understanding of a world split by opposites. Yet meditation does teach us that God stands above all opposites, while representing the coincidence of all opposites, the ‘coincidentia oppositorum’. Hence, the result of all thought is also a knowledge of our lack of knowledge. Hellenthal ‘transcribes’ symbolically these ideas with his sculpture in a contemporary way. He does not rely on chance effects – his works have limits yet are limitless, and they tie in with the world view of the early 21 st century. He is concerned with the phenomenon of duality and polarity, of openness and ‘closed-ness’, and with the consistent application of concrete principles like vertical and horizontal, with the confrontation of those principles, and with rhythms and structures. With this dualistic interpretation of human reality Hellenthal gets remarkably close to the ideas of Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg who in 1917/1918 and 1922 said: “The extreme ‘one’ and the extreme ‘other’ that is expressed in abstract realist painting can be seen as externality and internality, as nature and spirit, as the individual and the universal, but as feminine and masculine elements as well. And also with regard to art, it is important to interpret duality of each and every life as such, since it sees duality from the point of view of life itself, and in that way the unity of life and art is evoked in us.” (Mondrian, ‘Neo-Plasticism in Painting’, 1917/1918, in De Stijl, Schriften und Manifeste, 1984, p. 136) Walter Hellenthal has been practising sculpture for over 30 years, but has not overlooked the essential aspects of other art forms: historic architecture, for instance, living as he does in an old building, renovated to be both contemporary and timeless, as well as his ongoing focus on his paintings and graphic work. His overriding belief is that truly artistic innovation can only develop from the creative exchange between the intended imagery and the causal, lasting experience of the material. Accordingly, his art is open to other artistic disciplines and phenomena of social development, science and technology. He has a thorough command of the planar surface, plastic form, space. His artistic work entails variations, an understanding of materials, craftsmanship, as well as the European ‘zeitgeist’. He reduces form to its most exciting levels, as regards both surface and spatiality, with sculpture as the main focus. He creates uncompromising and distinctive objects from stone, iron and steel, amalgamates them, having altered and freed them, into a new aesthetic structure, which is literally both figurative and abstract at the same time. He does not seek to depict reality, but to use it and, by way of alienation, to clarify it. These objects made from stone – primarily Anröchter Dolomit (German greenstone) and Ruhr sandstone – and iron – cast iron and steel – are as compelling as they are impressive in their plasticity. Their size and expressiveness are not due to three-dimensional volume, but to their considerable vitality, which the spectator perceives as energy, as artistic power, seeming to thrust out from the core and defining from within the energetic tension and overall appearance of his art works. Moreover, as you look at his objects, painterly aspects also emerge. Essential characteristics of the work include light and shade, as well as marks made by his tools and vestiges of drilling in the stone, traces of the process and weathering which brings about colourful rust. The object’s volume, the varying surfaces and contours unite into a highly expressive whole, which only fully reveals itself to the viewer when one has looked at it from various angles, so the art work comes about in one’s head. Walter Hellenthal creates meditative objects with an abstract outward form; they unite what is alive and organic with the idealistic and geometrical. He uses natural stone – a material that came about millions of years ago – and industrially-produced iron – a man-made material, which in turn is obtained from ore-bearing rock from the natural surroundings and is turned into steel as well. His objects may be monumental and authoritative – regardless of their actual size – their effect in space is nevertheless one of instability. The viewer may feel in need of more information to better understand this art. Yet information tends to get in the way of art and guide possible understanding in the wrong direction; it obscures what can be seen rather than clarifying it. Normally we first, and for the most part, perceive everything in terms of its usefulness for our own purposes, but that does not work with Hellenthal’s sculpture. With that, you must be aware that seeing, visibility, perception and perceptibility are the vehicles of our experiential reality. It is a matter of sharpening our senses. If, however, perception is the basis, without which everything intellectual and reasonable would be pointless, it might be dangerous for the world and for mankind to repress it. Since time immemorial art has resisted the tendency towards repression and has always taken perception for what it essentially is: a way of making sense. Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes: “What is irreplaceable about art, what makes it more than an opportunity for pleasure, in other words a medium of the mind, is the fact that it is far more than ideas alone; it incorporates the matrix for ideas; it gives us symbols, the meaning of which we will never completely exhaust. And just because it places itself and us in a world to which we do not have the key, it teaches us to see, giving us something to think about in a way no analytical work has ever succeeded in doing.” (Morleau-Ponty: Die Prosa der Welt, Munich 1984, p. 109) In this way art facilitates directly the alienating game of perception itself, before it is overtaken and deployed by reason – a game that determines our daily life and has its own earnestness. Hellenthal plays this earnest game and practises art as emotional research: sculptural art between emotion and rationality with objects made from stone, iron and steel in ingenious polarity – contradiction as well as essential solidarity. (translation: Wendy van Os-Thompson)
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Biography Walter Hellenthal Andreas Beaugrand Art is always a way of approaching intellectual and spiritual questions concerning human existence. Walter Hellenthal admires the philosophy and mental legacy of Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464) who believed that it was not possible for the human mind, despite all its scholarship, to have a true understanding of a world split by opposites. Yet meditation does teach us that God stands above all opposites, while representing the coincidence of all opposites, the ‘coincidentia oppositorum’. Hence, the result of all thought is also a knowledge of our lack of knowledge. Hellenthal ‘transcribes’ symbolically these ideas with his sculpture in a contemporary way. He does not rely on chance effects – his works have limits yet are limitless, and they tie in with the world view of the early 21 st century. He is concerned with the phenomenon of duality and polarity, of openness and ‘closed-ness’, and with the consistent application of concrete principles like vertical and horizontal, with the confrontation of those principles, and with rhythms and structures. With this dualistic interpretation of human reality Hellenthal gets remarkably close to the ideas of Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg who in 1917/1918 and 1922 said: “The extreme ‘one’ and the extreme ‘other’ that is expressed in abstract realist painting can be seen as externality and internality, as nature and spirit, as the individual and the universal, but as feminine and masculine elements as well. And also with regard to art, it is important to interpret duality of each and every life as such, since it sees duality from the point of view of life itself, and in that way the unity of life and art is evoked in us.” (Mondrian, ‘Neo-Plasticism in Painting’, 1917/1918, in De Stijl, Schriften und Manifeste, 1984, p. 136) Walter Hellenthal has been practising sculpture for over 30 years, but has not overlooked the essential aspects of other art forms: historic architecture, for instance, living as he does in an old building, renovated to be both contemporary and timeless, as well as his ongoing focus on his paintings and graphic work. His overriding belief is that truly artistic innovation can only develop from the creative exchange between the intended imagery and the causal, lasting experience of the material. Accordingly, his art is open to other artistic disciplines and phenomena of social development, science and technology. He has a thorough command of the planar surface, plastic form, space. His artistic work entails variations, an understanding of materials, craftsmanship, as well as the European ‘zeitgeist’. He reduces form to its most exciting levels, as regards both surface and spatiality, with sculpture as the main focus. He creates uncompromising and distinctive objects from stone, iron and steel, amalgamates them, having altered and freed them, into a new aesthetic structure, which is literally both figurative and abstract at the same time. He does not seek to depict reality, but to use it and, by way of alienation, to clarify it. These objects made from stone – primarily Anröchter Dolomit (German greenstone) and Ruhr sandstone – and iron – cast iron and steel – are as compelling as they are impressive in their plasticity. Their size and expressiveness are not due to three-dimensional volume, but to their considerable vitality, which the spectator perceives as energy, as artistic power, seeming to thrust out from the core and defining from within the energetic tension and overall appearance of his art works. Moreover, as you look at his objects, painterly aspects also emerge. Essential characteristics of the work include light and shade, as well as marks made by his tools and vestiges of drilling in the stone, traces of the process and weathering which brings about colourful rust. The object’s volume, the varying surfaces and contours unite into a highly expressive whole, which only fully reveals itself to the viewer when one has looked at it from various angles, so the art work comes about in one’s head. Walter Hellenthal creates meditative objects with an abstract outward form; they unite what is alive and organic with the idealistic and geometrical. He uses natural stone – a material that came about millions of years ago – and industrially-produced iron – a man-made material, which in turn is obtained from ore-bearing rock from the natural surroundings and is turned into steel as well. His objects may be monumental and authoritative – regardless of their actual size – their effect in space is nevertheless one of instability. The viewer may feel in need of more information to better understand this art. Yet information tends to get in the way of art and guide possible understanding in the wrong direction; it obscures what can be seen rather than clarifying it. Normally we first, and for the most part, perceive everything in terms of its usefulness for our own purposes, but that does not work with Hellenthal’s sculpture. With that, you must be aware that seeing, visibility, perception and perceptibility are the vehicles of our experiential reality. It is a matter of sharpening our senses. If, however, perception is the basis, without which everything intellectual and reasonable would be pointless, it might be dangerous for the world and for mankind to repress it. Since time immemorial art has resisted the tendency towards repression and has always taken perception for what it essentially is: a way of making sense. Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes: “What is irreplaceable about art, what makes it more than an opportunity for pleasure, in other words a medium of the mind, is the fact that it is far more than ideas alone; it incorporates the matrix for ideas; it gives us symbols, the meaning of which we will never completely exhaust. And just because it places itself and us in a world to which we do not have the key, it teaches us to see, giving us something to think about in a way no analytical work has ever succeeded in doing.” (Morleau-Ponty: Die Prosa der Welt, Munich 1984, p. 109) In this way art facilitates directly the alienating game of perception itself, before it is overtaken and deployed by reason – a game that determines our daily life and has its own earnestness. Hellenthal plays this earnest game and practises art as emotional research: sculptural art between emotion and rationality with objects made from stone, iron and steel in ingenious polarity – contradiction as well as essential solidarity. (translation: Wendy van Os-Thompson)
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