South Plaza Sculpture Exhibit
Thursday, May 4th & Friday September 8th

Klaus Hartmann Collection I

H a u t S k i n
(Bronze & Steel)
(2005)
Size: 28x7x6 inches

Artist
Klaus Hartman

Whether he works in steel or bronze, Klaus Hartmann’s sculptures usually emphasize a similar set of characteristics. They involve the human figure but in abstracted fashion. They are stylized but still edgy, in part because of the surface quality of his work and its many sharp rims, corners, cuts and contours. Despite the heaviness of the medium and the volume of the sculptures, they have a light touch and often suggest a certain disregard for gravity.
The manipulation of weight and gravity is quite literal in Hartmann’s new series of bronzes, Haut (Skin), in which the central element, the human figure, is suspended. It’s also evident in his often life-size sculptures in steel, including Schreitend (Striding). And it’s true for his Skizzen (Sketches), small figures with full but barely three-dimensional bodies, molded from a steel plate, that balance delicately on a small point.

H a u t XVI (Skin XVI)
(Bronze)
(2005)
Size: 30x8x8 inches

Next to suspension, Hartmann in some work achieves lightness and relative weightlessness by paying close attention to a piece’s center of gravity. Sometimes a strong suggestion of movement helps. Hartmann also implies the complete form without actually realizing it. Instead, he presents body fragments, attached to each other, creating partial figures with large holes that leave it to the viewer to complete the form. This procedure limits the work’s physical weight and volume both literally and through the lively interaction it allows between positive and negative space.
Hartmann approaches his steel work as a blacksmith, not simply welding pieces together but actually hammering and bending shapes and forms from the material. Many of his current bronzes, too, have a hammered look, though they are formed on molds. Hartmann occupies an area between classic, closed sculpture and the more free-flowing, open constructions resulting from the drawing-in-space approach. As such, the hollow space inside his semi-enclosed forms can become as important as the negative space between the parts, and the inside surface of his sculptures’ shells, as important as the outsides. Haut XII (Variation 1/10) is an extreme example of this. In many ways, Hartmann’s sculptures reveal the impact of the pioneering Spanish metal sculptors Pablo Gargallo and Julio Gonzalez, who have strongly influenced metal sculpture in Western art since World War II.

H a u t XI (Skin XI)
(Bronze)
(2005)
Size: 13x6x6 inches

Hannover, Germany, native Klaus Hartmann (b. 1960), who lives in Kaiserslautern, is a fixture on the art scene of his German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. He teaches at the Fachhochschule Kaiserslautern, (the Kaiserslautern College of Applied Sciences) and has taught at the University of Kaiserlautern. Hartmann exhibits widely throughout Germany and has produced several public sculptures, for instance for the city of Kaiserslautern and the Rhineland-Palatinate Department of Culture. He is part of an exchange between artists from Columbia, S.C., and Kaiserslautern and since 2001 has exhibited several times in South Carolina. The catalogue “Klaus M. Hartmann: Stahlplastiken” (Klaus M. Hartmann: Steel Sculptures) was published in 1997.

Back to Current Events Main Page