Heiko Balster |2

An Egyptian obelisk on a pallet awaiting transportation; a bullet with a bishop’s mitre; an oil drum with imperial wings … Heiko Balster amalgamates striking political, religious and economic symbols to create a series of Monuments and Souvenirs from the Anthropocene. Together they tell numerous interwoven tales of violence and exploitation, justified by ideals, faith or national glory. Each work has the potential to set off a train of thoughts. Earn, for instance, an urn turned into a piggy bank, prompts the notion that the chances people get in life increasingly depend on inherited wealth … wealth is accumulated by saving … ruthless cost-cutting leads to fatal consequences in construction work, health insurance, and so on. With humour and compassion – that sarcophagus with a soda-can lid, the tiger rug with an excavator bucket for a head! – Balster stares our present predicament straight in the eye. And he doesn’t flinch.

Balster produced a series of plaster molds, cast from 3D-printed positives, to press-mould his sculptural series in limited multiples. Rather than using glazes, Balster coloured his clay with chromium oxide and made many colour/temperature tests to arrive at the just the right shade of green. He also worked with black clay.