Kevin Bauer
Sculpture / installation
My practice is a continuous investigation of form, in terms of traditional sculpture: how volume relates to space, to other volumes in space and how humans relate to both. Yet my approach is far from traditional. I assemble my sculptures from separate elements, aiming for compositions that come across as prototypes, as steps in a process of subsequent configurations. My sculptures play with the visual language of practical functionality, a familiarity connecting them to industrial design, architecture and construction.
I enjoy questioning the objects that surround us: how does their function connect to the elements they are constructed from? I reverse-engineer and transform parts that are industrially produced, decontextualizing them, remove their practical application and employing them as visual elements. My making process is directed by ‘material intuïtion’. I started out using found objects and materials that I deconstructed, modified or imitated. Nowadays I manufacture virtually all components of the works myself, applying different techniques, from traditional molding techniques to industrial processes. Through experiment I explore the characteristics of a wide range of materials. I play with the typical, recognizable visual and tactile qualities of materials, aiming to create dynamic and unpredictability through juxtaposition, similarity, simulacra, and strong contrasts between organic and geometrical shapes, surfaces, roughness and finesse.
My approach challenges the distinction between concepts like artificial and real, simulacrum, imitation and "the original". My work refers to industrial mass production, commerce and consumerism and it touches upon the distinction we make between functional and non-functional objects: the underlying categorization that also determines our definition of visual art. The designed environment we live in, the manufacturability of our physical living environment, is the topic that I reflect upon and intend to question.
