Width: 1,55 m
Chocolate: 180 kg
Preparation time: 3 days
Location: Wergona Chocolate Manufactory, Wernigerode
]]>Number of sculptures: 21
Exhibition dates: 2008, October 23.-26.
130 kg of chocolate were crafted in 120 working hours into an impressive, one-of-a-kind sculpture. As part of Vienna’s 8th annual “Lange Nacht der Museen” (an open house gala of the city’s museums), Gerhard worked on the sculpture live on location at the Palais Niederösterreich. Several of the children visiting the Palais had the opportunity to assist the master in his craft and try their hand at perfecting this work of art.
The finished sculpture inspired the admiration of visitors of all ages and won a laugh from many onlookers, not only because the figure represented a somewhat plump lady, but also because it was a contradiction in itself, due to the athletic position and the fact that the woman is made of chocolate (does chocolate make you fat?).
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Weight:
180 kg (397 lbs.) of couverture
(160 kg. white chocolate, 20 kg. of dark chocolate, all from the craftsman chocolate maker Callebaut)
Size:
1.82 m (ca. 6 ft.)
An Interview with the Artist:
For his thesis project, Gerhard chose to realize his thoughts on the topic of “globalization” in a very personal way, since his own life is “globalized”. Gerhard, tell us about your idea for this project.
GP: Since I was 3, I have spent some part of each year in another country. As of now, I have had the pleasure to have lived in or visited 30 of this world’s countries. However, the more I see of the world, the more I feel the need to turn inwards, to find the impressions I have collected inside myself. Outwardly, you see the world as it seems, and inwardly, you find it as it is, in its essence.
I invite my viewers to join me on my “Journey to the Inner Self”.
The Project:
A bronze statue is standing on the floor. 85 kilograms of chocolate are applied to the sculpture and formed into the shape of a body builder. When the chocolate sculpture is finished, the chocolate is melted away, revealing the bronze statue. The chocolate, therefore, serves as a human shell that disconnects from its inner self through time, and eventually falls away.
During the building of the chocolate sculpture, one can see me in the pictures. During the melting phase, however, I am absent. What remains is the core, which, through the bronze material, will outlive me through the next several thousand years.
The presentation of the pictures of the application of the chocolate sculpture, the completion and the melting process were accompanied by a piece of music I composed called “Global Medley”. The music is a composition of parts of around 20 different pieces of music, including several pieces I myself recorded with a microphone. Global Medley begins with a Rock-and-Roll piece, since Rock-and-Roll played an important role in globalization beginning in the 60’s with the Americanization of Europe. The Medley also includes an Indian man I interviewed at the airport in Graz, Austria, as well as a Serb, who tells of his life and an Egyptian dish washer living as a “Guest Worker” in Austria, who thanks Allah in Arabic. Each of these people has left their home lands, themselves becoming a part of globalization.
My final presentation was given in Spanish, English and German, in order to emphasize and do justice to the multicultural togetherness of our time.
The project: Gerhard was part of a select group of Styria’s premier artists chosen to take part in this one-of-a-kind competitive project. Each artist was to create and realize an artistic design for a 16m2 advertising column in Graz’s City Park based on the project’s theme, Temporal Art.
The design: Gerhard tells the story of humanity, its creativity and its connectedness, using multiple dimensions to represent various interrelated aspects of civilization throughout time and space.
