Object installations

The works of Helgard Wertel can be understood – starting from an intensive confrontation with black and white photography and their existential reduction to the essentials and in turn their dissolution. The things and objects originally in photo series such as “Oggetti ritrovati” and copied on to coarse grain Baryta paper have now been transferred into a third dimension.

Things, used by humans, discarded and forgotten, eroded by sand and waves and thrown on to the beach. Or such things that were left behind or lost and then exposed to the eternal time of decay.

Also mummified carcasses of small animals or dried plants or wood find use as witnesses of an ancient time.

All these things – each single individual object – that have already lived their own history and been stripped of their original meaning are brought back to a new life and purpose in the object art of Helgard Wertel.

Their nature of randomness – not in the sense of presence, but of life experience – and their assignment to one another produce a fascinating and complex expression of a new sphere.

These in themselves complex spheres or also individual object sculptures cover a broad spectrum of personal and general experiences; emotionality and rationality, melancholic-meditative presence and ironic subtlety are expressed in them.

Small half-closed areas and cages are not revealed at first glance; the observer is forced to approach them interactively, whereby often by means of integrated mirrors an interaction is provoked.

Only after precise viewing do these object installations – often illuminated by warm tranquil or cold aggressive light – disclose their inner state. Sometimes it’s the inner state of mind of human individuals, but often it’s also the condition of the world in which we are living.

Tomaso Bardini
Florence