Part of a Whole no. 94/4 / Peace Sculpture

This sculpture is located atop a round steel pillar in a niche next to the Martinikirche tower. It’s one of Erwin Wortelkamp’s Heads, a group of sculptures that are formed out of tree trunks and stand as complete, expressive works with little additional alteration. The Heads are meant to establish a relationship between architecture and the human body, with a capstone being comparable to a head. This analogy is further emphasized by this sculpture’s height, which corresponds to that of the human body. After being carved, this work was also cast in bronze, which the artist compares to a birth process. The structure of the wood remains recognizable in the cast bronze and is accentuated by the black patina. After being shown in the exhibition Zwischendrin, the sculpture was purchased with the support of the Kunststiftung NRW.