TERESA ODER DIE QUADRATUR DES KREISES

TERESA ODER DIE QUADRATUR DES KREISES

Kristina von Bülow, March 2019
Teresa 2018 is a black abstract sculpture. The artwork is made of epoxy resin - The photo is taken at studio Erik Andersen berlin
TERESA, 2018, Photo: Studio Erik Andersen, Berlin

TERESA OR SQUARING THE CIRCLE

Kristina von Bülow, March 2019

‍Erik Andersen's black sculptures are ambiguous riddles that are not decipherable at first glance. The monochrome objects with compact surfaces and clear contours have a strong spatial presence. Their formal reduction at first suggests a directness of the artistic message that, uponcloser look, is revealed to be metaphoric and witty on several levels. The works are philosophic metaphors for human existence, which the artist manifests three-dimensionally in a thought-out yet playful way.  

 

Teresa, 2018, a wall piece based on circle and square, is exemplary for Erik Andersen's black sculptures. Reminiscent of the collapsed ruins of a toy block-like architecture, semicircular and quadrangular elements are sitting on top of one another. In their shiftedness, they hold each other up by means of inner statics newly attained after the collapse. In the foreground, a window of two semicircles, appearing to be a doubled stone arch, creates an apertureto the square back plate of the construct. Like a frame, this circle circumscribes an area that, similar to space, seems to extend endlessly into the depths.

 

But this circle is not unflawed. The perfect circle is an archetypal symbol of the ideal, the Arcadian,the divine. The absolute of these characteristics points to their earthly unattainability. The fact that Erik Andersen sets up this circle in a seemingly unstable balance is a metaphor for the eternally futile human pursuit of perfection. The desire to reach ideal Arcadian states is all too human – the impossibility to actually get there just as much.

 

This existential conflict between the interior and the exterior, between reality and the ideal is underlined by the title addition "Teresa". It is a reference to Saint Teresa of Ávila who is, on the one hand, known for her strong inner experiences that she had during meditative states while praying, and, on the other hand, for her outward-driven connection with people. The ambivalence of introspection and extrovertedness, between self-communion and communication with the outside world, characterises being human in general and artistic creation specifically. The constant antagonism between facts and ideal states and the ongoing aspiration to bridge it is a key theme in the work of Erik Andersen.

 

Thus, while we construct our reality in the foreground and succeed at it more or less, we lookout into utopia. Our reality plain tells of trial and error, of emergence and decay, but the background, the unattained ideal, remains unchanged. Into this back plate, the artist has inscribed with his thumb a nearly perfect circle that repeats the window opening. This groove, as a handmade signet on divine tapestry, stands for the human imagination of personal ideal states.

 

Since time in memorial and across epochs and cultures, circle and square signify the divine and the earthly in arts and architecture. The circle without beginning and end symbolises timelessness and infinity, and the square with its four sides represents the four elements and cardinal directions. This specific combination of two geometric forms has been defined as an archetype, an elementary form from the vocabulary of the collective unconscious spanning humankind, by the psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. Not coincidentally, the ground plots of sacral buildings from the occident and the orient, such as, for example, St. Peter'sin Rome and the Stupa Borobodur inIndonesia, are based on the circle and the square.

 

The desire to reach the perfect ideal world of Arcadia is the equivalent to squaring the circle: a constantly sought-after but eternally unsolvable undertaking. In his black sculptures, Erik Andersen emblematises the discrepancy between what is and what could be. His eloquent play with expectations and ambiguities inherently constitutes his work and opens varying perspectives and metaphoric dimensions of significance.

LIST OF WORKS
TERESA, 2018, Photo: Studio Erik Andersen, Berlin
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