Halm / Stalk

Beat Zoderer – an artist particularly known for his abstract sculptures and wall designs made with colored ribbons – completely dispenses with color in this work. At the center of the sculpture is a vertical tube made of polished stainless steel. This pole is surrounded by a darker latticed construction that is wrapped around it like a fence or a corset, but doesn’t actually touch it. The intricate sculpture forms a mass of linear elements, which you can simultaneously see and see through. It protectively encloses the stainless steel pole and creates a boundary between the interior and exterior space. At the same time, the lattice structure divides the continuous height of the pole into five horizontal sections, similar to how scaffolding in front of a flat facade shows the floors of a building from the outside. Since 1997, Beat Zoderer’s work has been concerned with the pillar as a historical and symbolic architectural element. Freed from the burden of carrying a load, the column here appears light and even fragile. Without a base and capital, the Stalk depicts a repeatable section of a potentially infinite sequence of segments without a beginning or end.