Trans-Sculpture
TRANS-SCULPTURE
Transcendence, how does it manifest itself today, at the
›end of the grand narratives‹ after the end of metaphysics?
Is there perhaps still a need for sentimental hints to some-
thing somehow completely different and otherworldly? In
our age, transcendence is essentially a private matter ...
and more likely to lead us into a gallery or museum than a
house of god.
How can we placate our partiality for transcendence
nowadays? If not through religion and philosophy – could
it then be through art? The early production of transcen-
dental images, such as icons, was still linked to prayer. In
an era of aesthetic disorientation and overproduction,
what principles, precepts or prayers guide us, the self-
dubbed photo artists Anna & Bernhard Blume? It is easy
to say what art ought to keep to in general and in our case
specifically, but it is not that easy to do. Art should work in
a way that, on the one hand, subverts metaphysical and
ideological illusions yet, in doing so, neither forgets nor
betrays the treatment of transcendence. The answer to
everything else and particularities, such as questions of
mediums, methods, materials, body and sculpture, form
and content, meaning, significance ... in short, of trans-
cendence and its potential traces ... This answer, ulti-
mately, as the sensory experiencing spectator, is up to
you alone. So judge or laugh for yourself.
Anna & Bernhard Blume, Summer 2011
Die Hineingehaltenheit des Daseins in das Nichts auf dem Grunde der verborgenen Angst ist das Übersteigen des Seienden im Ganzen: die Transzendenz.
Martin Heidegger
