Manfred Emmenegger - Kanzler
Curriculum Vitae
Manfred was born Germany in '53.
He studied geology, trained as a ceramist and studied Design at the University of Applied Sciences.
In 2008, he was selected for a residency in China at the International Museum of Ceramic Art.
He designed numerous ceramic sculptures for public spaces.
Since 1987, he has been selected for solo exhibitions and participated in many exhibitions at home and abroad in museums, art halls, universities (Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, South Korea, China).
In his career, he received awards several times for his ceramic sculptures.
Exhibits for the first time in Belgium in our gallery and will also be one of our guest artists at the April expo in 2024 with a focus on outdoor sculptures for garden and park.
Inspiration
„The firmly delineated form of the cube serves as a starting point for my spatial-plastic investigations.
Sculpture is not understood as a space-displacing body, but gains in significance to the extent that it succeeds in setting the surrounding space in motion. It then becomes a lively confrontation between mass and empty space.
In this way, the existence of the other becomes visible and can be experienced.
Relationships of space to body, of the same to the different in form and material are the main theme of my investigations.
The strictly geometric constructions create a sense of distance in the viewer due to their closed, monumental character, but on the other hand curiosity and the need to get to the bottom of their secrets.“
The simplicity of Manfred Emmenegger-Kanzler's works always proves deceptive, resulting from the carefully planned complexity of an arrangement of differential elements that unfold a play of opposites among themselves: form and matter, body and void, straight line and curbs, angles and rounding, inside and outside, front and back, up and down ....
The viewer will never succeed in grasping one of these elements in isolation from the others or the totality of the contrasts in a single moment.
(source : Presse release by Dr. Walter H. Lakau)
Technique
Manfred Emmenegger-Kanzler works with terracotta, a porous and unglazed pottery made of brown-orange-firing clay.
Sometimes he emphasises the colour by using oxides.
His sculptures are fired in an electric kiln at 1150 degrees.
When he makes a stand in Corten steel, this is done only after the ceramic sculpture is completely finished so that the parts fit together perfectly.
His artworks are frost-resistant.
