Sculptures, 2013.
Cardboard boxes, wood, water.
The work was presented at the group exhibition HALLE50 in Munich. The exhibition was part of a collaboration between Icelandic artists who created a gallery in the Factory in Hjalteyri, and Munich-based artists. The artists from the two countries took turns in visiting the other’s country and exhibiting.
The collaboration between artists and the travels contributed to the title and the work. The title of the work is built on the names of two German scientists, the legal historian Konrad von Maurer and the geographer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Maurer was an Icelandophile, travelled to the country to collect folklore, and wrote about his journies. The sculpture consists of three cardboard boxes, filled with water on the inside and standing on thin, wooden legs. On the boxes the words: Lonely men seeking new surfaces, were carved out and pulled back. The sentence is only visible when the boxes are read together.
Stories from lives of these famous German explorers and travelers were an inspiration to the text on the work. However, the text can also be interpreted against a broader, more universal background. The desire of seeking, not only through scientific research or university knowledge but also through travelling, ultimately leads to a sense of losing oneself: one’s background or the original dream. Conquests and new knowledge begets desire for more, but for what? Modern man’s relentless, uncontained search for new images and attractive surfaces inevitably leads to loneliness.