Matthias Will

Exciting …

Notes on the work of Matthias Will

To claim that a work of art is “exciting” is a popular way of avoiding an evaluation in a conversation about art. To avoid taking an unambiguous position and thus to be able to mark a subjective position without claiming general validity, which at least states that the work in question does not bore the viewer, which is already worth quite a bit, and that it is thus worthwhile to deal with it.

There were already comparable tendencies in the Gothic period, albeit under different auspices, and sometimes with disastrous consequences. And already from prehistoric and archaic times we know sculptures that lack the grounding. They were probably held in the hand or carried on the body – in any case they could not be placed, at best they could be laid down. Nomads, hunters and collectors could hardly have found a sensible location for the erection of monuments. The famous bronze angel by Ernst Barlach, to cite a more recent example, hangs on iron chains. Only in more recent times has it become the rule for the sculpture to leave its pedestal, but it is still unable to rise into the air, unless it is suspended like Calder’s mobiles.

Will – and I quote from a text by Roland Held – uses “the basic elements circle and square, cube and cuboid, sphere and cylinder, which he has varied and combined over many years, sawing, cutting, welding, screwing, lashing.” In this respect, his art would not be further innovative, not even if the constructive concept “the craftsmanship sometimes opposes the rough edge,” “more often still the rusty or flex-drawn surface. The conceptual of the work as a whole thus experiences a certain relativization through the commitment to handwriting and materiality, beginning with the choice of iron as a material, which Will simply loves for its heaviness.”

He loves it to teach him to fly. This is another thing he has in common with the masters of the Gothic: to test what the material is capable of, to challenge it to the limits of its possibilities. Will loves paradox, loves squaring the circle. Thus it is also in decided contradiction to the idea of constructivism, which is unquestionably binding for him, that he, contrary to what one might assume, proceeds improvising rather than constructing, that he does not prepare and work out his designs on paper, but tries them out in small models until he has reached that intuitively grasped point of coherence which – according to his own words – distinguishes art from design and mere decoration.

Will uses mostly “normal” rusting steel for smaller works, but weather-resistant stainless steel for larger ones. However, he always makes a point of “painterly” modifying the material and form’s inherent technical perfection by structuring the surface. But it is not only the contrast between form and surface that creates a tension in his works, but also, and even more so, the way in which the parts relate to the whole in the works, which basically consist of several elements – often only two elements juxtaposed in dialogue.

As a rule, the segments, which are related to each other in different ways, originate from a disassembled basic geometric form. From their separation and reassignment, however, the new, the different, the surprising emerges: A spatial, dynamized structure, a metamorphosis that may be succinct and coherent, even rationally comprehensible, but in the fewest cases is immediately transparent – although the artist does not conceal anything, but rather allows the constructive principle to emerge fundamentally open. A form is fragmented, the parts come apart, they are rotated, shifted, turned, and finally reassembled into a complex structure that rises into space, that encompasses space, and that refers to the surrounding space. The dream of flying fascinated Matthias Will from an early age. The “synthetic sculptures” of the seventies and early eighties, works entitled “Flugobjekt” (Flying Object) or “Schamanenflug” (Shaman’s Flight), were made of various materials – wire and paper in particular – with which he adopted a position clearly different from that of his teacher Michael Croissant. Nevertheless, he did not completely depart from his teacher’s characteristic reference to the human form. For Will’s works play with the laws of gravity in the same way as a ballet dancer does, whose performance seems to be an overcoming of the laws of nature, but in reality is based only on their highly professional application and thus becomes a metaphor not of the impossible, but of what – even against all expectations – is possible.

Heidelberg, July 2012

Hans Gercke

2014
Schulzentrum Marienhöhe, Darmstadt

2003
Haus Schade, Weilrod, „Spirale-Flügel“

2002
Bessunger Kirche, Darmstadt, „Altarkreuz“
Haus Kunz, Sasbachwalden, „Kreisteilung“

2001
Uni-Klinik Würzburg, „Kreisteilung, Bogen schwebend“

2000
AK Versicherung Mainz, „Drei Bögen im Raum“

1997
Städtische Kliniken Darmstadt, „Würfel, dynamisch“

1996
Fachhochschule Rüsselsheim, „Kreuzkugel“

1994
Polizeipräsidium Darmstadt, „1/4 Zylinder, Quadrat“

1992
Städtische Bibliothek Darmstadt, „Quadrat, Konus“

1989
Bürgerpark Nord, Darmstadt, „1/2 Quadrat, Kreisbogen“
Kreiskrankenhaus Seeheim-Jugenheim, „Stele“