Lot 540 D

'Stephan Balkenhol has the courage to reinvent figuration as a subject of contemporary sculpture. In doing so, he succeeds in liberating the motif from its historical burden and in creating an unemotional image of humanity which remains ambiguous in its statement. He applies himself to the defined groups of subjects with formidable gravity. Even if his sculptures often have an inherent humour, the artist never ridicules his themes. Stephan Balkenhol denies himself the contemporary backdoor of irony and thus becomes vulnerable. He does not adopt the pose of the provocateur and does not allow himself a redeeming “it's just a joke”. As an artist, he is never the laughing outsider aloofly regarding the implications of life, allegedly knowing everything better. In this position he has to endure the fact that those who do not pay close attention simply consider his sculptures beautiful and do not see the conceptual aspect. On the one hand, this does not do justice to the artist Stephan Balkenhol but on the other hand, there are worse things than the allegation of beauty.' (Harriet Zilch, Stephan Balkenhols Menschenbilder im Kontext bildhauerischer Tradition, in: Matthias Winzel (ed.), Stephan Balkenhol, exhib.cat., i.a. Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Cologne 2007, p.218).