The Competition - Kein leichtes Spiel

The work of art called “The Competition” that originated between the two small rural towns in Sauerland on the one side and Wittgenstein on the other forms both the starting point and the end point of the international sculpture project entitled “Waldskulpturenweg”. By inviting the inhabitants of Schmallenberg and Bad Berleburg to send letters across the dividing ridge of the Rothaar Mountains to the other town, Gerz bridges the gap between different identities, traditions and prejudices. The letters are about people’s ‘home’ and are testimonies of how people feel about, experience, witness and remember things on their sometimes difficult way toward the other person.

 

His work called “No Easy Game to Play” takes up the subject of a gate he has repeatedly worked on before. Here, he fractionises a steel slab (40 cm deep, 375 cm high, 550 cm wide) into three gates and two tipped locking slabs. In doing so, he breaks up the steel wall and converts it into opened gates that are to be walked through – an austere artistic concept with the implied message of connecting formerly separated regions.