A giant eye trapped in a spiral, the fossil remains of a mammal and other fragments of life lie scattered, partially buried in churning soil, in unreal, hostile ground. Did a disastrous mudslide cause this devastation? A giant hand reaches for the sky, its fingers forming a V, occidental gesture of peace and victory, and, in Asian cultures, a symbol of luck. A small spaceman is the astonished witness of these remains, seemingly helpless in the face of his discovery. Did he just land in that archaic space- capsule? Is that possible? The spaceship evokes the armor of a knight from the Middle Ages, a technical relic of times gone by. Its shape and color are confusing in this seemingly so unambiguous scene. The escape ramp is shaped like a broken, old water pipe. Can this capsule really fly? Has it come from another time? Is the spaceman able to travel within the time continuum, as depicted in the film “Interstellar”? Or is he looking at relics of an alien civilization?

The work raises questions and leaves the many possible answers up to the observer. The Artefact is a caper, a captivating irritation, a contrast to our habitual experiences and traditional imagery. The artist celebrates his profound joy in spinning tales. He evokes the explorer’s boundless delight in the face of the unknown, and thus the initially inexplicable. The scenery conveys a strong feeling of respect for those artefacts, eternally trapped in ore, for art itself and the life of civilizations long gone. Perceiving this thought in its entirety, the work makes us marvel at their nemesis, and not in a merely rhetoric way. We are presented with layers: On the one hand the eerie scenery, on the other a perfect allegory of our fascination with archeology, opening a third, fourth and possibly even fifth associative dimension.

In his song “Space Oddity” (1969), David Bowie used these beautiful words to express this feeling: “This is Major Tom to ground control / I'm stepping through the door / And I'm floating in a most peculiar way / And the stars look very different today / For here / am I sitting in a tin can / far above the world / Planet Earth is blue / and there's nothing I can do... Ground control to Major Tom / your circuit’s dead / there's something wrong / Can you hear me, Major Tom?”

Carsten Theumer tells a contemporary story that is, in the best sense, a romantic one. Its symbolic force corresponds with fascinating plasticity. Offering us a new perspective on traditional sculpture.

The fire has gone out. The flame of freedom and progress has died, the torch is broken and doomed to fade into nothingness. Its symbol – “La Liberté éclairant le Monde” or “Liberty Enlightening the World” – is lost in a maelstrom, sinking into the unfathomable depths, into the water or into the mud, a primal matter lacking any solid form. An allegory of the abyss, of the omnipresent demonic forces.

The scenery embodies the idea of total failure. It is a metaphor for the existential danger that threatens our civilization, a doomsday scenario to end the bourgeois era, the age of technical innovation. Like the great works of William Turner and Caspar David Friedrich, Carsten Theumer succeeds in sending a shiver down the unsuspecting observer’s spine.

Has our dream of freedom already become an imaginary vision of a mythologized past? The tabula ansata, the Declaration of Independence and Liberty’s crown with its seven rays have not yet entirely disappeared. The heavy, broken chains at the statue’s feet, however, have already been engulfed in the abyss. One of the most famous figures in the history of sculpture has become nothing but an archeological artefact. And it seems that the monumental idea, the inspirational force of a republican vision, is going down with it.

Carsten Theumer conveys his feelings precisely without lecturing. The sinking Statue of Liberty is a visual antithesis of any romantic reverie. It is a strange irritation, a painful precognition of the concerns that now arise in light of current American politics.

At first glance we might sense a trace of caricature, but a second look reveals a fitting depiction of this present scenario of our existence. Like a seismograph indicating a sudden change, the work gives us reason to pause. The associations that arise are multi-facetted and complex.

The narrative moment isn’t the only thing that strikes a chord. The sculptor allows us to discover unusual natural forms: inexplicably amorphous, fascinating as the bizarre lava currents flowing out of a volcano, or the astonishing force of a geyser fiercely tearing the material forms of civilization apart with irresistible power, seizing them, reuniting them with Mother Earth. Here, the sculptor has found a contemporary form of expression that expands the traditional scope of sculpture. In terms of its narrative, the work exudes a strong symbolic force that simultaneously corresponds with fascinating plasticity.

The artist himself named this work “Wellness”. The title refers to the vortex, the water that forced the molten wax into the mold that forms the basis of the sculpture. A head emerges from this basis, sculptured in the round. This can only be a portrait of an individual. We soon realize that this is Carsten Theumer himself, raising his head above the swirling waters. Traditionally, the unambiguous and snappy title “Self-portrait” would suggest itself. But Carsten Theumer is a modest man, so he chose a different title. His Self isn’t meant to be at the core of possible associations, it is not work- immanent as is generally the case with self-portraits. But where does it stand, this ominous Self, in relation to the artwork, being a central part of it? A closer look shows that what seems to be swirling water could just as well be something quite different. The bronze is sticky, it flows around Theumer’s head like dough, a lava-like swamp that has already engulfed his body. Is the artist about to drown? Is this an allegory of being lost in existence? Or is he becoming one with the material? This is not an unambiguous association either. Our possible interpretations are complex and, in a way, antithetic: rise and fall, destruction and creation. For the head might just as well be emerging, followed by the rest of the body, forming itself minute by minute out of this sticky vortex. This small-scale sculpture is a symbol of the act of creation and is therefore a myth in itself. The artist is a creator, forming a figure out of matter – in this case creating himself.