by Frans Jeursen, for Art-nl, March 2003, pp. 12-15.
Translation: D. Lee, Amsterdam, September 2003.

“My childhood during and after the Second World War,” Ewerdt Hilgemann relates, “consisted of wandering through ruins, listening to the drone of airplanes in the sky, air-raid shelters, piano lessons and obligatory Greek and Latin.” Perhaps it was just this contrast between terror and reason, typified by ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato, which eventually made him what he is today. Hilgemann (born 1938 in Witten, Germany) became a sculptor with a strong belief in the power of humans to supply order to the world and determine their individual fates. “After the War,” Hilgemann continues, “I simply couldn’t imagine choosing a normal profession in a society with a past like Germany’s.”

His early work, with ‘cubes’ for example, is characterized by a geometric element expressive of his rational side. Hilgemann comments, “I measured, calculated and tested other mathematical ratios.” Simultaneously there is a relentless sense of an enormous elemental power which threatens nature’s order as well as the order within the human heart. Hilgemann stands and points to a pair of wall reliefs made of small wooden sticks, one diamond-shaped, the other circular. Both have a tight pattern, but I instantly notice how one sees small anomalies of shadow and perspective which increasingly undermine a complete, purely mathematical symmetry. The tension between huge, anonymous forces and human attempts to control them permeate this sculptor’s entire oeuvre.

Freefall

Hilgemann then describes his two opposing forces from a completely different perspective. “In 1982 I went to the Carrara marble quarries in Italy where centuries earlier Michelangelo also sought the best sculpting stone.” Just like the Renaissance artists Hilgemann strives for perfection. “I worked a hard month polishing each side of an enormous, nine-ton cube to mirror-like perfection. Then, to the great indignation of the local sculptors, I let it roll down the hillside. It toppled down in less than a minute and finally came to rest followed by a long stream of loose rubble.”

Here we see the convergence of various aspects of Hilgemann’s life and work. The apparently capricious and accidental path taken by the cube, whose tumble is governed by strict natural laws, illustrates that even those things which appear irrational have their own logic. The giant cube’s dents and lesions represent those things people encounter during their lives, things which stay with them, and ultimately shape them. The rubble represents those things in life one has abandoned and the consequences of having done so.

"Of course," Hilgemann adds, "I first rolled another block of stone down that hill in order to see its path." Thus there is a clear link between his tendency to maintain control over the course of events and his eye for the unique moment. The cube was perfect and its equilateral quadrangles defined by a strict geometry. The free-fall subsequently admits chance into the creative act, albeit well within the artist’s carefully demarcated boundaries. Call it a controlled experiment. Hilgemann asserts that "art must have an irrational aspect, no matter how rational the methods we use to create it."

Creative destruction

This remarkable play of planned and controlled chance is even more clearly seen in his ‘implosions’. Hilgemann relates, "I weld together thin metal sheets into a rectangular column, pyramid or cube and then suck the air out of the metal ‘boxes’ through a small hole such that the atmospheric pressure forcefully collapses it." This series of works makes clear, however, that ‘chance’ forms are in fact reproducible and can be constructed in series. He explains: "From experience I now know exactly what will happen first and what thereafter."

It is perhaps the case that Hilgemann’s artwork represents a synthesis of the two conflicting forces from his youth: the senseless destruction wrought by the rain of bombs dropped on Dortmund and the strong urge to build – as was humanly possible – a new, much better governed world. ‘Creative destruction’ his work has been called. Yet this term calls to mind a man who personally destroys something with a sledgehammer, while Hilgemann’s guided distortion remains invariably creative and moreover his results are the product of a well considered choice and detailed calculation. He himself calls his working method “systematic constructive”.

Bomb fragments

“Long ago,” Hilgemann recalls, “My friends and I used to collect bomb fragments, pieces of sharp-edged, blue metal, from amongst the ruins of Dortmund. Each of us had his own
collection.” He laughs, “I wonder what such a collection would be worth today!” This, at any rate, was Hilgemann’s earliest contact with hidden metal. Great cubes and boxes are imploded by the force of air pressure, giving simple forms an increasingly symbolic meaning by their distortions, wrinkles and bends.

As we walk to the basement of his house the sculptor points out various intermediate forms between more linear and more wrinkled sculptures. Such a series permits differentiation of the
steps in his development and also acts as a kind of timeline.

Plato, whose writings Hilgemann translated from Greek as a child, believed that the entire universe was constructed from elemental particles each perfectly formed. Even the most capricious forms in nature are based upon strict mathematical harmony and balance, he asserted. Ultimately Hilgemann tries to capture this in his sculptures with specific reference to the history of human development. Here we see a perfect mirroring of the downward tumbling marble cube of Hilgemann’s personal life and the frozen steel pyramid, rectangle and cube implosions. We all began with a kind of “basic package” which is then dented and scratched by life’s events. Most important is that one’s essential nature is not harmed in the process. Hilgemann remarks, “Michelangelo once said that the quality of a statue is not diminished should it fall off of a mountain.”

Circle

The continual exchange between mathematical symmetry and the apparent asymmetry of chance is much like a circle. At first one dominates the viewer’s field, then the other. In this way one could say that Ewerdt Hilgemann’s sculptures call forth a kind of quiet space; they create a magic circle around the viewer in which one’s attention is concentrated on the middle – the sculpture itself. This is, then, another meaning of the idea of implosion. On the other hand, despite their collapsed state the sculpture’s smooth surfaces are reflective.

The result is that one’s attention is caught first by the image of reflected environment and only immediately thereafter by the sculpture itself. This is another hidden, special quality of
Hilgemann’s work: their smooth surfaces capture the entire world around us and return a distorted image.

A consequence of this is that each sculpture simultaneously possesses center-seeking and center-avoiding movement. Just as with symmetry and asymmetry this too has a circular structure in which human and world mix together. This last point – representing all reality in a single work and then to somehow return this image to the viewer – is the epitome of what anyone could expect from a qualitative, edifying artwork. In this Hilgemann has manifestly succeeded. The essence of his work and he himself remain unspoiled.