Marler Kreuzstück / Marl Crosspiece

The basic geometric shapes of circle, square and cross form the starting point of many of Heinz-Günter Prager’s sculptures, executed in solid Corten steel. He is concerned with the proportions within his works, which he puts in relation to human beings: “The human being and the sculpture are stable factors. Their distance to each other forms the unstable factor, for it means time and space. The sculpture-human relationship is part of this time-space structure, merging into a mass-space-time-unit. Stable factors are changed by unstable factors.” (Heinz-Günter Prager: Überlegungen zu meiner Skulptur. In: Katalog H.G. Prager Skulpturen 1978. Stadt Leverkunsen, Leverkusen 1978, pp. 119ff).
The „Marler Kreuzstück,“ too, is executed as a ground sculpture without a plinth in order to establish an immediate relationship with the viewer. In this work, the artist has cut the shape of a cross from a square that is divided into four sections by these incisions. The negative shape of the cross has been shifted from the centre. The diagonals of the square extend beyond its corners, creating a second cross shape whose form is derived from a circle around the intersection of the cross cuts. This circle determines the length of the diagonal crossbars. The basically simple construction generates a complex structure of forms which the viewer can trace and relate to.