Robert Krainhöfner

About me

Biopic (Oct 2020)



Geometry

The starting points for my work are simple geometrical forms, which obviously undergo a change process. These elementary forms are folded or cut according to predetermined rules and reassembled. In my investigations there is a curiosity in the foreground, which would like to show the living and invisible nature of geometry. Folding rooms are created, which can be traced back to their original position with imaginative attention. The challenge is to look and understand the playful relationships between space and space.

Concrete Art (Bauhaus, Josef Albers, Max Bill)

For me, the Bauhaus's legacy consists in the changed approach and view of all cultural issues. There was the opportunity for an argument in an institution with all its advantages and disadvantages. However, it unified different currents in the search for basic truth, simplicity and credibility, and the social concern of justice. For me, the approach of Josef Albers in the preparatory course of the Bauhaus made this clear. Tom Wolfe describes in his book "Living with the Bauhaus" how Josef Albers speaks in his paper course of the soul of the material and then examines the designs of his students. I do not regard this approach as a retrospective heritage, but as a begun legacy, which seems increasingly important in our time when we want to distinguish between important and unimportant. On the one hand, in pedagogy, as in Albers, on the other hand, also for his own artistic work. Max Bill, who was a student at the Bauhaus Dessau, has contributed to the concrete art through his work and formulated it decisively. Max Bill's way of thinking, the rules for the work, and the work to be so named, is very familiar to me and has a strong impact on my work.

Visual Sound

The traceability of my folds from the surface makes it possible to perceive the movements of the material as a vibration. The folding of the steel surfaces creates spaces which allow the material to sound. I call it "music for the eyes". Themes from music such as rhythm, composition, or diagonal, as well as important numbers, such as the Eight or the Twelve, are obvious. For example, when a steel strip is folded by the shortening of the one band side, an interspace is created with the ratio of 3: 2. Musically this corresponds to the interval of a fifth. I would like to make this mathematical connection between interval and gap in music as in sculpture as obvious and experienceable. For me, space is equal. It is the idea of ​​a visual sound that I follow. The sculpture and the surrounding space correspond to a sound with the associated phrasing or pause. Just as in music the breaks form the music most decisively, my sculptures come through their surroundings first to the full development.