Skulpturenpark Köln

Installed at the side of a path, Alexander Esters' (b. 1977 in Bad Kreuznach, Germany) sculpture appears like a mystical door affording access to another World. Working primarily with the lino-cut technique, the artist unveils here his first outdoor sculpture which forms part of his "magic mirror" series. Standing at a height of almost 4 metres, this sculpture is fabricated in an open space: a lead-glazed screen, framed darkly within a painted oval form. Glowing eerily, as if the mirror were possessed by an evil spirit, it sits upon a throne, adorned by mythological animal heads at the top, anchored below by aggressively splayed claws. And then the title: Lüg du Sau! (Lie, you pig!) Who is exhorting whom? The sculpture the observer? Or vice versa? Or is it the artist himself giving the orders? With this work, the artist seems, on the one hand, to be withdrawing from his vibrant pictorial world, whilst, on the other, concealing his sculpture behind the title and challenging the viewer to divine his own meaning.