Stephan Balkenhol

Stephan Balkenhol (born 1957, Fritzlar, Hesse, Germany) is a German artist, famous for his figurative painted wooden sculptures and reliefs. He is currently Professor of Sculpture at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe (Germany). Lives and works in Karlsruhe, Germany and Meisenthal, France.

Life and career
Balkenhol attended the Hamburg School of Fine Arts from 1976 to 1982, and studied under Ulrich Rückriem with Nam June Paik and Sigmar Polke among his tutors.

Balkenhol began sculptural wood carving in the mid-1980s. His totem-like sculptures of everyday people continue the European tradition of wooden sculpture and reference folk art and medieval and classical Greek sculpture.

As a response to the abstract, minimalist and conceptual approaches of the Hamburg School, Balkenhol decided to concentrate on an everyday persona, instead of an idol or hero. By the 1990s, his repertoire had expanded to include animals and hybrid creatures, as well as architectural motifs and reliefs.

Balkenhol's work is a concatenation of sensuality, vivacity, monumentality and humor. His figures emanate timelessness: simple, plain-colored clothing and the confident yet unassuming poses of familiar yet anonymous men and women who show no subjective feelings or emotions and contain no sociological or socio-critical references.

The artist uses a variety of woods, such as poplar, Douglas fir and wawa wood, and hand carves each piece from a single block using hammers, power saws and chisels, leaving behind shavings and traces visible in the wood, with its knots, grain and cracks. He then uses paint to structure the sculpture and accentuate the anatomy, without in any way heightening the figure's expressiveness. His human figures are never polished to waxy smoothness and artifice. Like humans, they would not be themselves without imperfections. The rough surfaces and cuts create a sense of life force hidden inside seemingly apathetic humans – evidence of the artist's love of and faith in humanity.

Balkenhol's work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions around the world, including the Lehmbruck Museum (Duisburg, Germany), Museum Jorn (Silkeborg, Denmark), Landes Museum (Linz, Austria), Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, CA, USA), MKM Museum Küppersmühle für moderne Kunst (Duisburg, Germany), Museum of Grenoble (Grenoble, France) and Staatliche Kunsthalle (Baden-Baden, Germany).

Artist's public installations
Balkenhol has also completed a significant number of public commissions in his career. Among them are the “Big Head Column” for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice, Italy), “Big Man with a Little Man” for Pariser Platz (Berlin, Germany), “Man and Woman” for Hamburg Central Library (Hamburg, Germany), “Everyman” for the Edinburgh City Council Offices (Edinburgh, Scotland) and “Man with Tower Block” (Toronto, Canada).

Awards

 * 2016 Honorary membership of the Academy of Russian Arts, Saint Petersburg, Russia
 * 2014 Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France
 * 1990 Bremen Art Prize, Bremen, Germany
 * 1989 Sponsorship Award, International Prize of the State of Baden-Württemberg, Germany
 * 1983 Karl Schmidt Rottluff Grant
 * 1986 Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg Grant, Hamburg, Germany

Public collections

 * Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL, USA)
 * Birmingham Museum of Art (Birmingham, AL, USA)
 * Broad Museum (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
 * Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
 * Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin, Germany)
 * Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, DC, USA)
 * Kunstmuseum Bonn (Bonn, Germany)
 * Le CEAAC (Strasbourg, France)
 * Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
 * Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst (Aachen, Germany)
 * Museu Berardo (Lisbon, Portugal)
 * Museum Ludwig (Cologne, Germany)
 * Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt (Frankfurt, Germany)
 * National Museum of Art (Osaka, Japan)
 * Neue Pinakothek (München, Germany)
 * Pasadena Museum of California Art (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
 * Peggy Guggenheim (Venice, Italy)
 * Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, WA, USA)