Reason for purchasing the sculpture Optimus II

Günter Haese creates filigree structures out of wire. Brass and phosphor bronze are his materials, with which he creates a unique physicality, cut and bent, as a braid or as a spiral, soldered and joined to form three-dimensional sculptures. So far he has done everything himself and his work has been kept in manageable sizes (approx. 50 - 200 cm high). The wooden transport boxes are also made by hand with the object they are supposed to contain. Haese delivers everything completely, the finished work, its storage and finally the title, which is mostly formulated and sometimes changed following a poetic association. Since 1963 he has been able to bring his work to international recognition with great success and has maintained this position to this day.

With his commitment to the Sculpture Collection Viersen, Haese takes a different approach for the first time. After much deliberation, several site visits and intensive discussions, the possibility of a monumental sculpture in public space and in addition in an ensemble of completely different, contemporary works has become an artistic challenge for him, which he wants to face with his own cautiousness.

Of course, this is not just about increasing the size of a Haese object, but above all about bringing the artistic qualities of your own work into the new situation: the delicate and delicate construction made of wire, the open space, the vibrating mobility of its individual limbs and their ability to react to air movements, light and glare reflections in interaction with fixed and moving parts of the construction and the playful description of the air-filled room as a lively sphere.

Kinetics deprived of mere mechanics, which is transformed into an almost organic arbitrary movement. The built frame as an organ - hence the recurring comparison with antennas or space probes that Haeses objects evoke. They point into the vastness of the space and assert the possibility of its crossing. At the same time, they are cell-like buildings in which the sequence, regularity, and seclusion of an interior can be experienced as possible mobility in itself, as if through a transparent skin. Cell structure and tentacles, feelers and antenna and at the same time structured, serially structured and regularly appearing body, in which the movement appears as one of its possible modes of being like a sporadic reflex or a blowing breath - as an infinitely delicate sensibility.

The Viersen sculpture collection, which has set itself the task of bringing together essential manifestations of the plastic in extraordinary works, to confront them and to make them part of urban life, is enriched in a unique way by a plastic object by Günter Haese. The assembly character of this metal work differs significantly from the existing works by Wolfgang Nestler and the "New Star" by Mark di Suvero. A completely new dimension of the plastic is brought to appearance with Haeses work in the sculpture collection Viersen.

Joachim Peter Kastner