(b Kaltenbach, Czechoslovakia, 27 June 1927). German sculptor. He studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart (1947–54). His sculptural work began in 1950 with figurative wooden pieces. The non-figurative bronzes (from 1956) were called Spatial Knots and Spatial Layerings. The spiky forms and the rough and indented surfaces of his sculptures, moulded using the lost-wax technique, demonstrate the close relation of his work to Art informel, for example Spatial Knot 64 (1958; Ravensberg church). In the 1960s the sculptures, while maintaining their large number of joints, were stripped of surface encrustations as Hajek began to move towards geometric constructions. Spaces are created in these works through intermeshing systems of braced concrete beams and articulated through the addition of paint, which takes on certain plastic functions; the tracks of paint drawn over the sculptures—many of which may be walked over—led Hajek to use the term Farbwege, Paint Paths for these works, for example Spring in Frankfurt (1963–4; Frankfurt; exh. Kassel, Documenta 3, 1964). In setting up series, mathematical arrangements of brightly coloured, horizontal, vertical and angled structures alternating with diagonal courses, he achieved a dynamicization of space.

• Hajek, Otto Herbert
  • Stuttgart, §2: Art life and organization