Big Sür
Powder-coated aluminum
305 x 260 x 140 cm
“If this sculpture were a sentence, it would be short and end with a question mark” – Anna Fasshauer
This monumental sculpture by the German artist Anna Fasshauer is a real eye-catcher, its bright yellow colour standing out against its surroundings. The artist has been using aluminium as her material of choice for the last ten years or so: she likes to play with the suppleness and lightness of this metal, which – using nothing more than her physical strength – she can bend, push, crush, deform or roll, etc., to give shape to her sculptures.
Big Sür, which appears abstract at first glance, can nonetheless evoke flowers, a precarious construction made of crumpled paper, an assembly of cardboard boxes or a kind of helium-filled dumbbell. Inspired by the aesthetics of slapstick comedy, the artist plays with lightness, both literally and figuratively. Far from an austere, cold monumentality, Big Sür almost seems to have anthropomorphic qualities, existing autonomously and dynamically in space. The artist likes to leave the welds visible on the surface of her works, which visually convey an idea of assembly and play. This playfulness is reflected in the original exhibition context of Big Sür, created for the CHART 2023 contemporary art fair and its outdoor sculpture trail in the gardens of Tivoli, an amusement park dating from the 19th century (Copenhagen, Denmark).
