Brass sculpture, Hans Josephsohn (1920-2012)

Like "3 Lotus" by Not Vital, "Die Liegende" by Hans Josephsohn also owes its existence to the auction of attractive car numbers in the spring of 2006 by the city of Chur, but the figure at its former location in Poststrasse repeatedly caused controversy and heated tempers. Both the purchase by the city of Chur and the work itself gave rise to discussions. In the meantime, the brass sculpture has been given a new lease of life at its new location in front of the extension to the Bündner Kunstmuseum. The contrast between the strict geometry of the extension building and the amorphous visual language of the sculpture unfolds its very own charm.

Throughout his life, Josephson, whose Jewish family perished in a concentration camp, devoted himself to the human figure and immortalized it in colossal sculptures. The artist himself escaped the Holocaust because he studied in Florence thanks to an art scholarship before fleeing to Zurich at the age of 18. Josephsohn's work is interpreted as an attempt to rescue the painfully lost family and the individual shaped by life into durable sculptures. Timeless, the massive yet fragile creatures tell stories about the latter's "feelings, conflicts, defeats and desires," as the Zurich artist once said. "The Reclining One" is a brass casting made for outdoor use. Under the weather conditions it constantly evolves, so contrasts can change - the reclining figure will have a life, so to speak.

Today Josephsohn is considered one of the most important contemporary sculptors. "The Reclining Figure" is one of the last great works by Hans Josephsohn. On August 20, 2012, Hans Josephsohn died in Zurich at the age of 92.

By the way: not far away, on a wall of a house at Süsswinkelgasse 15, an early relief by Josephsohn can be seen. It is privately owned.



Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.