The first Italian exhibition of the German sculptor Jürgen Lingl-Rebetez. The author, using an unusual carving technique with the almost exclusive use of the chainsaw, creates suggestive works in wood, which portray animal species, many of which are at risk of extinction. In the exhibition at the MUSE, more than 30 sculptures – including monumental ones – will be collected in four thematic cores.
Next to the wild pantheon of gods Large Carnivores will therefore find space for the groups of arctic species, of temperate environments and – finally – a corner where the author gives his artistic and passionate tribute to the horse, an animal that is certainly not threatened but that man is slowly "forgetting" after making it a key element of his history.
The visit to the exhibition is primarily characterized as an aesthetic and emotional experience, supported by the grandeur of the exhibited works, but the information accompanying the species represented also allow us to deepen the state of conservation, the present complex and the gloomy future of these spectacular travel companions.
Behind the result that comes out, there is the profound anatomical knowledge by Rebetez, who has memorized and made his own the dimensional relationships, the proportions and the harmonies between bodies and skulls, jaws and jaws, eyes and nostrils, and proposes them again on the rough surface of the wood attacked by chainsaw.
In accordance with the author's desire that his works - beyond the powerful aesthetic fascination - can sensitize the visitor to the survival "events" of the animals portrayed, the selection of sculptures has privileged species with problematic conservation aspects: big cats, bears, wolves, but also minor, less iconic and less showy species, but still threatened by habitat changes, climate change or human persecution.
“Rebetez's work is ideally placed between a sort of expert comparative anatomical approach and its artistic interpretation – explains Michael Lanzinger, director of the museum. A relationship that in some ways exalts, almost hyper-represents, the essence of the represented subject. Once again, art is a language that allows for the construction of a transfigured relationship with reality – the zoological dimension in this case – by amplifying and specifying its characteristic features. And it is precisely the exposure to this "transfigured reality" that activates in us, as observers, that process of hooking up to our previous experiences and of re-interpretation that generates that feeling of fullness that we call artistic experience".
The sculptural technique by the artist (German by birth and French by adoption) captures and fixes the "spirit" of the subject through a limited number of essential gestures which - as is the norm in wood carving - remove the superfluous and outline the "lines of force" of the organism portrayed. In the hands of Jürgen Lingl-Rebetez, the chainsaw – a “brutally subtractive” tool generally used to give the first shapes to the piece of wood – it reveals itself as an intentionally chosen and practiced method of approach, precisely for the purpose of going beyond the precise shapes and focusing on the inner spirit, the distinctive animality, the essence that pervades and vivifies the subject. To give further verisimilitude and vitality to the body, the traditional carving tools (chisels and gouges) soften some strokes and – finally – a few strokes of the brush with oil colours, provide elements of even greater identity, and the figurative realism/vitalism becomes definitely impressive.
The artist
Jürgen Lingl-Rebetez is a German artist, born in 1971 in Bavaria; the passion for drawing and painting of the most varied subjects (animals, people and landscapes), intense in him since childhood, led him, at the age of 20, to the first exhibition of his artistic nude studies at a gallery of Dachau art.
He later specialized in wooden sculpture thanks to an apprenticeship with the master Hans-Joachim Seitfudem, before moving to Switzerland in 1996 and becoming an independent artist, beginning to explore the expressive potential of the chainsaw.
Today, the works of Jürgen Lingl-Rebetez, who moved to France in 1999, are exhibited in public and private collections throughout Europe, the USA, Canada, Russia, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.
