Gehard Demetz
The Snow Comes From The Moon
9th November until 21st December 2013
Beck & Eggeling is proud to present the second solo exhibition of new works by the sculptor
Gehard Demetz (*1972). The vernissage will take place as part of the "Art in the Carlstadt"
weekend on Friday, 8th November at 7 pm, at Bilker Straße 4-6 in Dusseldorf. The exhibition is on
display until 21st December 2013.
The Tyrolean Gehard Demetz creates fascinatingly detailed sculptures and objects from
basswood. Particularly his figures of children, confronting the viewer with blank eyes and in
provocative poses, show his very own and strong artistic imagery. Most of the children are
endowed with different attributes in an oppressive way: A young pinioned boy holds a saw in
his hands, another raises his empty hands high above his head, wearing on his belt a cross like
a gun. Demetz's works question the value system of our society today, as the artist puts religious
symbols and everyday objects into new contexts, thus creating new meanings.
The exhibition also shows Demetz's ongoing artistic development by means of several
sculptural objects that enter into a dialogue with the children figures. These are based on
sacred objects, but are alienated by abstraction and contextualization.
The traditional craft of 'Herrgottschnitzerei', of great importance in his native South Tyrol, is the
starting point for Demetz's technical approach. In constant engagement with traditional
techniques and figures of the genre, the artist has developed a distinctive, contemporary
language. His sculptures are not created by removing wood from a trunk, but by assembling a
multitude of individual pieces. By consciously leaving gaps between these individual parts,
Demetz refers to the concepts of completeness, emptiness, and the fragmentary.
The title The Snow Comes From The Moon makes reference to the simplified explanations with
which adults answer children's questions. These satisfy the curiosity of the children, and when
they grow adult, they leave them greater room for interpretation than the actual scientific
explanation. Demetz says: 'In some stages of life, one misses this playfulness, fantastic, that can
often have something very true in my eyes.'
After studying at the school for sculptors in Selva di Val Gardena, Tyrol, Gehard Demetz
lectured at this school for ten years. He refined his training at the International Summer
Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg in 2000 and 2001. In 2007, he received the Richard Agreiter
Art Prize for sculpture. The artist lives and works in Selva di Val Gardena.
Since 2002, Demetz's work has been shown in various solo exhibitions, for example at the
Kunstverein Recklinghausen in 2013 and at the Villa Wessel Museum Iserloh in 2008. They were
also represented in numerous group exhibitions, e.g. at the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro in
Milan in 2011, at the Kunstmuseum Mülheim in 2012, and in the Galleria Nazionale, Palazzo
Spinola in Genoa in 2009.