„Resting Pieces“ | photography on Alu Dibond | 2020 | 60 x 40 cm

Resting pieces

„Session of progression“; 125 x 200 x 30 cm; wooden cart wheels, wrought iron, brick; 2020 

Session of progression

From the series „Present progressive #1-117“, 15,5 x 20,8 cm, print on paper with acrylic paint, 2020

Present progressive #8

"Substance and Form" | 2015 | brass, empty hourglasses, sand | 90 x 80 x 30 cm

It is a commercially available brass balance that hangs from the ceiling. In the left pan there are glass flasks of different sizes from hourglasses. They are empty. Matthias Ströckel drilled out each one and filled the other pan with the sand. By separating the hourglasses into their components and placing them in a new context with the balance, the artist opens up new paths of thought.

As usual with him, the materials are everyday things: here, a balance and hourglasses. Both are measuring instruments. The balance measure real, tangible things, the hourglass measures time and is therefore also called the hour clock. The hourglass has become useless as an instrument - but it still functions on another level: as a symbol. With its inexorably flowing sand, the hour clock has been a sign of vanitas since the Middle Ages, for the transience of all being. The balance is also a symbol: it stands for justice.

Ströckel uses the title in English because it offers even more room for interpretation as in German language: It can refer to the content, i.e. the underlying idea, and the external appearance . “Substance” can also be translated as truth content or essence, and “form” with design and state. Even not just accepting the familiar, always discovering things differently and anew, this is what Matthias Ströckel's work inspires.

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Matthias Ströckel