Prior, Antenato (Vorfahre, Urahn), 2003
The Art Walk
Antenato (Vorfahre, Urahn), 2003
Every material is a challenge, whether it is a six-metre-tall tree trunk or a piece of paper.
EDUCATION
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A Closer Look at the Work
His face bears the weight of a time when Europe was torn between industrialization, faith in progress, and the wounds of two world wars.
The raw surface of the cast iron reminds of burnt earth, steel, machines, and the scars of an era in which man recognized his own fragility.
Nothing about this figure seeks beauty in the classical sense; its dignity lies in its resistance. Corners, breaks and fissures tell of loss, deprivation and a humanity that lost its lightness.
Like a silent witness, „Antenato“ stands in the room – archaic, heavy, and at the same time surrounded by a peculiar aura. Walter Benjamin’s idea of auraticity is palpable here: the irrecoverable presence of a work that does not represent memory but carries it within itself. The rusty iron body seals its surface like a wound that has preserved itself over decades. Thus, the rust does not become a sign of decay but a protective cloak of time.
In its uncompromising form, it presents a new observation of man: not heroic, not idealized, but marked by history. „Antenato“ looks back on its origins and past – and at the same time on what remains of man when all the masks of civilization have fallen.
About the Artist
Klaus Prior’s artistic work takes shape without preparatory sketches or models. Depending on their size, his sculptures and works on canvas and paper are often completed in a single, concentrated session. Spontaneity and condensation define the process. Through a form of psychic automatism, Prior gives visual expression to his state of mind at that moment. The works reflect raw, intuitive sensations and immediate emotional states.
Using spontaneously chosen colours, impulsive gestures and swiftly applied brushstrokes, the artist develops the silhouettes of his motifs out of an inner necessity. Crossing the boundaries of form, deliberately exaggerating heads, faces, limbs and gestures, and leaving the traces of the working process visible are central stylistic devices. They embody the expression of the moment and give the works their compelling presence.
As a sculptor, Prior works primarily with wood, one of the oldest artistic materials. His iron sculptures also originate in wooden works. He consistently avoids narrative contexts, attributes and representational references that might place his figures within particular stories. The figures stand on their own: existential, vulnerable and isolated.
Prior’s art is deeply shaped by his childhood and youth in post-war Germany, by his awareness of the human condition and its fragility, and by the lived realities of an industrial working-class culture shaped by many nationalities. His paintings and sculptures explore pain, injury and isolation as recurring conditions of human existence.
As a member of the generation born after the perpetrators, Prior rejected their repression of the past and refusal to acknowledge guilt. He avoided conscription in West Germany during the economic miracle by emigrating to Switzerland. From there, he followed the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt am Main closely and, although he bore no personal guilt, engaged deeply with Germany’s crimes against humanity.
This historical awareness and his engagement with philosophy after Auschwitz underpin his thinking and creative work. Prior’s oeuvre expresses an existential struggle with memory, responsibility and the fragile dignity of human beings.
Photos: © Marie Ruck
Ardi Goldman Kunst-
und Kulturstiftung gGmbH
Uniongelände
Hanauer Landstraße 188, 60314 Frankfurt am Main