The title, GODOT, refers to Samuel Beckett’s absurd play Waiting for Godot from 1949. Beckett is said to have been inspired for the play by Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Mann und Frau den Mond betrachtend (Man and Woman Observing the Moon) from the 1830s. The painting shows two figures standing in a dark wooded landscape gazing at the night sky, for no apparent reason and with no visible purpose. That image certainly matches the existential core of Beckett’s play, which Lemmerz’s statue references. GODOT is a figure full of inner motion, despite its apparent immovability as it stands there, waiting, in the middle of Amagerbrogade.
The piece is both figurative and abstract. By virtue of its scale alone, more than three metres tall, it has a powerful impact when seen from a distance and surprisingly rich detailing when studied up close.
A classic material meets the computer
Bronze is a classic sculptural material, but Lemmerz did not take a classic approach. Instead, he used 3D scans and 3D printers to arrive at the sculpture’s expression. Lemmerz made no attempt to make the sculpture appear handcrafted but ‘tricked the computer into being creative’, as he puts it. The surface is jagged and uneven and shows the computer’s desperate attempts at forming a figure based on the distorted input it was fed by Lemmerz. The grooves from the layered working process of the 3D printer are clearly visible, lending the sculpture a dynamic exterior. Through this process, Lemmerz has arrived at a rich expression with references to a futurist expression with technology at its heart.
About Christian Lemmerz
Christian Lemmerz (b. 1959) is a German-born artist who is based partly in Copenhagen and partly in the marble city of Pietrasanta, Italy. Lemmerz’s practice revolves around existential topics, such as time and impermanence, which he typically addresses in a unique and internationally acclaimed sculptural pieces. His artistic expression has roots in the Renaissance and classicism, which he combines with contemporary and generally more fragmented expressions from a range of media, including drawing, sculpture, film, installations and performance art. Christian Lemmerz was awarded the Danish Arts Foundation’s lifelong artist grant in 2010 and the New Carlsberg Foundation’s Artist Grant in 2015.
