Five Fingers on a Hand, Five Walls on the Pentagram

Strictly speaking, the basic shape of Klaus Simon’s sculpture is a pentagon, not a pentagram. However, if you were to connect the non-adjacent corners with five lines of equal length, a pentagram (a five sided star) would emerge within the structure. As such, the pentagram is only implied and imagined, as enhanced by the viewer’s movement and lines of sight when standing inside of the artwork. This analogy between geometry, numerology, and the human body is echoed in the reference to the fingers on a hand, which are illustrated by the five oak beams on each side.
The cut beams still reveal the shape and growth of the oak that was used to make them. They are grouped together using head and foot beams and distributed with the same spacing on each side, leaving more distance between the beams near the corners. At the top of the structure, there are joists around the perimeter that form the shape of the pentagon and join the sides together as a unit. In this way, it looks like an archaic dwelling or place of worship, while its openness makes it possible interact with the surrounding park and nature.
The sculpture was commissioned specifically for this location for the project Folkwang´87 – Im Auftrag – Kunst im öffentlichen Raum.