Richard Wedekind
Conversation Piece
2006
corten steel
Initially trained as an academic and exploration geologist, Richard Wedekind is now a full-time sculptor and painter based on Waiheke. A contributor to the Island’s annual Sculpture on the Gulf exhibition in 2005, his entry Walkway was subsequently purchased by the TelstraClear Pacific Arts Centre in Manukau. Walkway’s giant, elongated figures, devoid of individualizing features, were representative of all New Zealanders and made a claim of kinship to the coastline of our country.
Evolving out of these previous works, Brick Bay’s Conversation Piece consists of two totemic human figures laser cut from Corten steel plates. For Wedekind, the construction of the figures from a series of contours ‘reflects my geological background where everything from topography to the shape of orebodies is constructed through extrapolation between series of known cross-sections to give a three dimensional shape.*
Two and a half metres in height, the figures are devoid of classifiers like race, age or gender; they are purely generic, symbolic of the ‘everyman.’ Placing them in rolling pasture, Wedekind uses these figures as an entry point into an ongoing dialogue between figure and landscape. Concerned with the dynamics between audience, sculpture and environment, the figures are conduits for Wedekind’s exploration of these interrelationships. ‘The scale of the figures and their location relates to the dominating presence of man in the landscape. The footprint of our activities dominates the environment and these figures are about self-aggrandisement.’*
While the elongation of the figures is reminiscent of the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti, Wedekind’s sculptures are also characterized by a sense of ‘flatness,’ a quality that hints at the trace, the shadow. The sculptures are a lingering reminder of the ephemeral presence of the viewer and their journey through the landscape.
Serena Bentley
*Artist’s statement Brick Bay 2006
