Stephan Balkenhol

With a soft roughness, Stephan Balkenhol chisels out men and women from singular pieces of wood; reliefs, sculptures, full figures and portraits. There are obvious parallels to ancient marble sculptures, with the most obvious difference being that Balkenhol’s figures are dressed. His wooden sculptures are rough and painted in bright colours.

With traditional tools like hammers and chisels, seemingly ordinary men and women grow out of large singular wooden blocks, figures he himself refers to as ‘Everyman’. They wear everyday clothes and give no clues about social status, occupation or personality. Facial expression is always serious and neutral. This particular de-identification paradoxically enables an identification: they are none at all, and at the same time each of us.

Balkenhol’s sculptures have been exhibited in many institutions and public settings, attracting attention in Rome, London, Paris, Berlin and New York. He is represented at nearly 100 international institutions, including: Neue Pinakothek in Munich, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the National Museum of Art in Osaka, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.. A solo exhibition of recent sculptures by Balkenhol opened at Stephen Friedman Gallery in January 2023. Other notable solo presentations include: ‘Stephan Balkenhol’, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany (2020–2021); ‘Stephan Balkenhol’, Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Denmark (2020); ‘Le Prévu et l'Imprévu’, Palais d'Iéna, Paris, France (2020). Balkenhol is known to a Swedish audience through its two figures on stilts, six meters high, which since 2004 stand outside Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg.