Teutonic is made out of the skull and vertebrae of a young deer, a metal castor, a metal handtool and wire, fixed to a metal plate. A wire rolls off an upturned metal castor through the vertebrae bones, is hold up by the two legged opened hand tool with a spiked head (echoing the spine vertebrae) and finishes its ark in a deer skull, dangling just over the bottom. This sculpture wants to evoke conflicting feelings of light and heavy, dark and light, strong and fragile, male and female, organic and artificial, menacing and nurturing.
The term ‘Teutonic’ refers to an ancient Germanic tribe which is now extinct. Used as an adjective it describes anything having qualities that are regarded as being typical of German people. All objects have been found in Germany, the deer bones discovered in the underwood of a German forest still present traces of green fern. The sculpture seems to belong to a time long gone by. It exudes a feeling of extinction. The duality of its composing material is echoed in its underlying ambiguous metaphors for what I call typical German qualities. The heavy metal and the tools stand for weight, solidity, resistance, stability, technicality and invention. The deer embodies mythology, mysticism and duality. The fragile structure represents German romanticism, poetry and vulnerability. The Teutons have disappeared a long time ago.
