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WÜRZBURG
Opposites complement each other
The Würzburg BBK Gallery in the Kulturspeicher shows the powerful works of the Oldenburger.
For ‘Blues in e (for E.C.)’, Michael Olsen has combined oak wood and sheet steel into one unit.
‘Touching the objects is expressly permitted’, says Michael Olsen. These are powerful works that Olsen presents here under the overarching title ‘Antagonisms / Contraria sunt complementa’, which translates as ‘the opposites complement each other’.
In his objects, 52-year-old Olsen combines very different materials, such as stone, wood and metal, and creates a new form that rests in itself. In doing so, the artist orients himself to the specifications that nature makes him, especially to tree trunks, which in some of his works are 9000-year-old moorlands. The highlight here is that Michael Olsen often adapts the much harder metallic material to the grown wood.
This is particularly evident in the work ‘Blues in e’, in which an inserted black sheet traces the course of a lying oak trunk. And because this trunk is naturally twisted many times, the integrated metal creates a visible melody arc. Nature and technology form a new unity here. "Technology is also a part of nature", explains Olsen, who wants to combine the fragmentary into a new harmony.
Michael Olsen always has his work completely finished in his head before he starts working with chainsaws and other equipment in his workshop (he doesn't like the term studio).
Frank Kupke
(quoted in excerpts)