JOURNEY TO INNER SELF
Graz, Austria (2005)
Thesis Project for the "Master’s School of Art and Design" - section sculpturing
A bronze statue is standing on the floor. 85 kilograms of chocolate are applied to the sculpture and formed into the shape of a bodybuilder. When the chocolate sculpture is finished, the chocolate is melted away, revealing the bronze statue. The chocolate, therefore, serves as a human shell that disconnects from its inner self through time and eventually falls away.
My final presentation was given in Spanish, English, and German, in order to emphasize and do justice to the multicultural togetherness of our time.
Topic: “Globalization – the Journey to the Inner Self“
An Interview with the Artist:
For his thesis project, Gerhard chose to realize his thoughts on the topic of “globalization” in a very personal way, since his own life is “globalized”. Gerhard, tell us about your idea for this project.
GP: Since I was 3, I have spent some part of each year in another country. As of now, I have had the pleasure to have lived in or visited over 30 countries. However, the more I see of the world, the more I feel the need to turn inwards, to find the impressions I have collected inside myself. Outwardly, you see the world as it seems, and inwardly, you find it as it is, in its essence.
I invite my viewers to join me on my “Journey to the Inner Self”.
The Project:
A bronze statue is standing on the floor. 85 kilograms of chocolate is applied to the sculpture and formed into the shape of a bodybuilder. When the chocolate sculpture is finished, the chocolate is melted away, revealing the bronze statue. The chocolate, therefore, serves as a human shell that disconnects from its inner self through time and eventually falls away.
During the building of the chocolate sculpture, one can see me in the pictures. During the melting phase, however, I am absent. What remains is the core, which, through the bronze material, will outlive me through the next several thousand years.
The presentation of the pictures of the application of the chocolate sculpture, the completion and the melting process were accompanied by a piece of music I composed, called “Global Medley”. The music is a composition of parts
of around 20 different pieces of music, including several pieces I recorded myself with a microphone. Global Medley begins with a Rock'n Roll piece since Rock'n Roll played an important role in globalization beginning in the postwar times and early ’60s with the Americanisation of Europe. The Medley also includes an Indian man I interviewed at the airport in Graz, Austria, as well as a Serb, who tells of his life and an Egyptian dishwasher living as a “Guest Worker” in Austria, who thanks Allah in Arabic. Each of these people has left their homelands, themselves becoming a part of the globalised movements.
My final presentation was given in Spanish, English, and German, in order to emphasize and do justice to the multicultural togetherness of our time.
Part 1: Workshop bronze sculpture
Part 2: Chocolate works - Melting
