FR 
NL 
DE 
Art to Touch S
EXHIBITION
The Oldenburg sculptor Michael Olsen shows exciting sculptures.
‘Touching the objects is expressly permitted’, says sculptor Michael Olsen. The largely abstract sculptures made of wood, stone and metal challenge us to trace their shapes and surfaces with our fingers. Objects symbolize life. Opposites complement each other. The basis of his work are different woods, whereby he particularly loves the millennia-old moorlands. He often retrieves bristled or storm-cut trees from the forest, processes them with chainsaw and axe in varying degrees of intensity, sometimes the original tree is still clearly visible, and combines the wood with steel, hot-rolled sheet or strip steel in an elaborate and force-demanding technique.
As robust as the works seem at first glance, so multi-layered is the significance of the plastic compositions. The contrasting properties of the materials, cold and warm, smooth and rough, hard and soft, convey associations in carrying and loads, in peace and dynamics, in nature and technology. The metal injures and cuts through the wood, but it also connects and envelops it at the same time. In this way, these sculptures convey aesthetics, movement, emotions and spiritual experience.
Liane Thau
(quoted in excerpts)