published 03/04/2007

julia venske and gregor spanle, exhibiting at marcia wood, are are German sculptors who make stone look peculiarly plastic. Plastic in the sense of malleable, gloppy, spilling or droopy.

Lately they have taken to photographing their pieces in distant physical locations.

The 2006 photograph "Gumphotenpanorama" (above) shows one of their oddly named pieces in a digital composite. They didn't paste the images into the landscape digitally; they moved the actual sculpture around the landscape, photographing it separately each time. The resulting photographs of the sculpture in various locations were then combined digitally.

This is a pleasingly insane enterprise, but no more so than making stone look like organic cartoony beings (more than melting piles of stuff, their works resemble Smurf-like creatures, themselves remote descendants of Al Capp's Shmoos of half a century ago). Enormously funny, Venske and Spanle's sculptures (at left is "Dream of the Gumphyt" installation) are also based on immense craft and intelligence. Their genius deserves celebration.

published 2006 'venske & spänle' book

The work of German artist duo Venske & Spänle strikes a unique balance between reverence and innovation.

Their medium of choice is marble, a substance proven quite stubborn to manipulate but one whose most obvious quality may be permanence. It is indubitably the optimal material for rendering their distinctive shapes. And therein they find an alluring challenge. It would be impossible to ignore the history of marble sculpture. Names such as Michelangelo and Brancusi do not fade easily in our memories. But Venske & Spänle, though they address the past in their respect for the craft, their love of line and form, are creating inimitable sculpture decidedly rooted in the present and looking towards the future.

It has been said that to truly give something presence one must consult nature. It is there you will find the forms and substances that have persevered in the world. In choosing marble, Venske & Spänle were drawn to its inherent weight, purity and surface. The material lends itself to rendering skin; its flesh-like texture becomes a conduit to infusing life into stone.

Within the decade of work recorded in this catalogue, the Smurfs emerge as the artists’ co-conspirators, a species of organic beings operating individually and in groups, presented in a gallery or appearing unexpectedly at a bus stop, poised to populate within society. Upon meeting the Smurfs, one cannot resist touching or wanting to play with them; there is an instantaneous sense of companionship. One may be reminiscent of a platypus, another of a human posterior, another with a long arching fold may appear as an animated alien but always their forms are biomorphic; silky to touch, with bulbous rolls and beguiling expression.
Like a cartoon character drawn with one continuous stroke of a pencil, the temperament of each Smurf is identified by the line, defining it as ‘sad’, ‘happy’, ‘caught’ and so on. Their ability to reflect, absorb and exude energy allows them to infiltrate our consciousness in ways both subtle and jarring. The Smurfs appear as precocious, autonomous beings acting of their own volition and thus their behavior must also be considered.
How they adapt to an environment, alternatively mingling or sitting quietly on the fringes hoping to be invited in, become observations on human habits or social concerns. For Venske & Spänle, the Smurfs provide an opportunity to establish their own commentary on the psychological tensions within society and to this end the work grows in complexity when considered in a public forum.

The interactive disposition of their sculpture proves a recurring theme, subverting all preconceptions of preciousness with a sense of humor and irony.

An installation series entitled Helotrophs portrays marble in fusion with other objects, crawling over a foot or perhaps oozing across a lap. Helotroph Db2061 presents a mass of marble embracing a hand truck stationed alongside a warehouse and the deliciously smooth stone engulfs the vehicle, rendering this industrial tool beautiful. Evocative of lava or cake batter being poured into a pan, the Helotrophs merge with a person or an object and as though in possession of the missing piece, become complete.

„Außen Vor“ positioned three Smurfs within a bleak space into which the viewer wanders to find them endeavoring to connect with the world from inside a television, beyond a window and in the reflection of a mirror. The instantaneous relationship herein relies on illusion and imagination to elicit a sense of curiosity and frustration.
In „As if we are alone“ a Smurf in animated form is stationed amidst a field of inert sculptures such that there is a sense of liveliness and vigor within a motionless landscape, as though time has frozen for all but one.

Venske & Spänle environments combine commonplace objects reduced to their most basic form and presented in an altered context for intriguing effect.

Exterior site-specific installations such as ‘yard‘ demonstrate a will to shape external landscape in the spirit of environmental sculptors such as Robert Smithson. With simple cutouts in the earth, they upended a suburban landscape in a work that carries all the social resonance of the earlier Smurf installations.
The yard appeared at first glance to be a small hill of grass with a newspaper lying askew yet upon closer examination it is apparent that this is not a suburban lawn but a public park where a plane of plastic grass has been tilted upward to receive daily delivery of the New York Times.

‘Monument for a servant‘ utilized electrical boxes stripped of functional parts and set atop marble blocks to become modernist monoliths.

A series of ‘dustfields‘ spanning from 2001-2005 deposited an occasional smattering of marble dust in metropolitan landscapes where it would gradually scatter into the cracks and crevices of the city street, both becoming part of the environment and disappearing altogether. The marble dust, collected remnants of another project, is recycled into a commentary on urban evolution over time. These transient sculptures demonstrate that while our cities may seem permanent, they grew out of what was once an empty field and, owing to the
history of great civilizations now buried underground they may one day be a field again.

It is a common belief that working together requires flexibility but this is a concept eschewed by Venske & Spänle. When faced with opposing ideas of a work’s direction, the duo will debate the matter until one is compelled to acquiesce to the other’s view. That they work with an uncompromising substance such as marble is befitting as the physical process of coaxing an obstinate material into submission echoes the course of communication that decides what shape the finished piece will take. As a result the conviction and powers of expression required imbue the work with character. How those personalities engage with one another and with their surroundings yields an ongoing dialogue regarding transformation and behavior.

The installation pieces inhabit the environment, in itself a sculpture, modifying it with the addition of marble forms, resulting in an insular world that evaluates the passage of time and invites the viewer’s individual perceptions. Carving a new path between formalist and conceptual sculpture Venske & Spänle take a distinctive approach, infusing organic figures with ironic flair while nurturing a global vision by installing their work in both traditional and surprising settings.