XXL-Sculpture, "Second Life (Labourer)"

In 2018, Meinrad Maria Grewenig, Director General of the Völklinger Hütte World Cultural Heritage Site, invited Ottmar Hörl to create a large-scale sculpture of a five-meter-tall labourer made of fiberglass for Völklinger Platz near the entrance to the Völklinger Hütte in Saarbrücken.

It is based on the former steelworkers with their helmets and work clothes. Placed on a black, approximately 1.20-meter-high pedestal in monochrome orange, it refers to the museum and the artist's serial figures of the same name, approximately one meter high, installed there. "I want to send a symbol to the people who worked so hard there in the past," Hörl emphasized, according to the press agency dpa. The history of the Völklingen Ironworks is a good example of human drive and structural change, a topic that's still relevant today and makes you think: To what extent do progress and change influence both social structures and individual realities of life? What are the consequences when automated systems and digital technologies replace the majority of human labor? Although Hörl does not create classical monuments with his serial sculptures, it was particularly important to him to use this large-scale sculpture to honor the achievements of workers for society.

Text: Eva Schickler M.A.

View "Labourer" in the Shop
View Project "Second Life"

< back to overview News

XXL-Sculpture, "Second Life (Labourer)"

Categories

Events