Lecture - Christoph Zellweger

The first lecture of the year was from Christoph Zellweger, a kind of mixed media sculptor with origins in jewelery, from Switzerland who is currently a professor at Sheffield Hallam University.

His lecture in essence was about the development of his work, from jewelery with no specific artistic message to his current work in which he investigates the value of our bodies and what we do to them. In between he looked at how we can view the history of how we work through objects, sustainable work made with found objects, steel which represents the endeavours of humanity mixed with organic forms and the value of materials like polystyrene.

Chain, Christoph Zellweger, 1994, steel

 Image from http://www.craftscouncil.org.uk/

I liked the combination of the solid steel and the organic forms and that the piece started to fall apart, almost as if the steel was fully organic itself or that humanity's aim to pro-long it's existence can never be realised - everything decays at some point.

 My favourite pieces that he showed were his sustainable work where jewelery was made from found objects with sometimes no permanent joins so that the object could still be used as found and taken apart. For instance a block of wood, that expanded into a necklace, but could return to the shape of the original block.

I was also amazed by his dedication to his materials as Zellweger spent 2 years just researching polystyrene and making polystyrene objects from makeshift equipment at home in his bathroom. I think it was worth it though - the question of whether the artistic merit or material is more important to people is interesting.

Skin Body Pieces, Christoph Zellweger

Image from http://www.klimt02.net 

His work progressed in clear sections, surprisingly just like on an art A-Level course where your development has to be evident and logical. I quite liked this about his work, that you could see how he involved new and old processes, unlike a lot of artists where there seems no continuous development.

This development though included a running theme throughout his work...of breasts. I found his work interesting, but at the end of the lecture I was still confused as to his persistent fascination with them in his work over the years. He'd changed his materials and techniques, but he always stuck with the same image. By the end of the talk, I'd had enough of looking at them - there's only so much time that you can look at boobs.

Boobs, Christoph Zellweger, porcelain

Image from http://www.marsdenwoo.com