Unen Enkh

Unen Enkh (1958) was born and raised in Mongolia. As the artist recollects, the foundation of his thinking through art was established in his early childhood. Both his parents had a critical impact in his development as they nurtured his taste for imaginative ideas and encouraged courageous free thinking, unusual during socialism. Showing a serious interest in art and drawing, in 1974 he went to the only public, state-run Institute of Fine Art. Unen Enkh studied graphic art. As part of an exchange between socialist countries, in 1981 Unen Enkh went to Eastern Europe to attend art colleges, first in Prague and then in Budapest, where he graduated with two degrees, a bachelor’s and master’s in art. His success in graphic art was quite obvious as several works received awards in 1985 and 1987 at the Graphic Biennale in Miskolc, Hungary. Although he continued to work in graphic art, his interest in other media and experimentation began in Budapest in the mid 1980s. Since 1990 he is based in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.

Unen Enkh's outstanding work was selected for the mongolian pavilion at Venice Biennale 2015 and for the exhibition »Joseph Beuys and the Shamans« at Schloß Moyland 2021.

Untitled Sculpture by Unen Enkh, 2008  |  Material: Felt · Horsehair · Wire · Iron Rod · Hemp Cord  |  Size: 220 x 380 x 380 cm

In terms of his selection of essentially archaic materials — Mongolian felt with different degrees of hardness resulting from the addition of synthetic resin, heavy-duty iron wire, occasionally with horsehair and hemp cords. Unen Enkh is a sculptor in the classic sense. Creating incredible diversity, however, he acts in the realm of avant-garde art.

Venus Sculpture by Unen Enkh, 2018  |  Material: Felt · Horsehair · Wire · Iron Rod · Hemp Cord  |  Size: 340 x 210 x 230 cm

The earliest artworks made by human hand were sculptures, the oldest amongst them is a tiny Paleolithic Venus, carved of mammoth ivory. Sculptor Unen Enkh selects archaic materials like the original artists, combining Mongolian felt, wire and horsehair to create forms that expand to infinity and come to be magical through their symbolic power. His »Venus« is born from the union of heaven and earth, the energy of light gathered and transferred, blending matter and spirit, masculine and feminine. The ancient ivory figurine of Venus demonstrates how already 40,000 years ago, through the process of turning energy into a reality, creative humanity had emerged. The sheer magnitude of the process that it started is embodied in a contemporary sculpture by Unen Enkh.

NordArt 2022 — Carlshütte, Büdelsdorf, Germany
The Largest Curated Annual Exhibition of International Contemporary Art in Europe

2024 

• »Healing the Earth — 50 Years of German-Mongolian Friendship«, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany

2022

• »NordArt«, Carlshütte, Büdelsdorf, Germany

2021 

• »Joseph Beuys and the Shamans«, Schloß Moyland, Germany

2015 

• Venice Biennale — Mongolian Pavilion, Italy
• »Holon«, Galerie im Prediger, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany

2011

• »Back to the Roots«, Museum Biedermann, Donaueschingen, Germany

2007

• »E-WERK Artists«, E-WERK Freiburg, Germany
• »regionale 7«, E-WERK Freiburg, Germany
• Städtische Galerie Stapflehus, Weil am Rhein, Germany

2006

• Galerie Ellwanger, Lenzkirch, GermanySchloss Schramberg, Germany

2005

• »regionale 5« Hegenheim, France

2004

• Georg Scholz Haus, Waldkirch, Germany
• »Artists invite artists«, E-WERK Freiburg, Germany

2003

• SWR-Haus, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

2002

• Markgräfler Museum, Müllheim, Germany

Holon Sculpture by Unen Enkh, 2015  |  Material: Felt · Horsehair · Hemp Cords · Iron Wire  |  Size: 272 x 276 x 1,522 cm

Unen Enkh at Galerie im Prediger, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany

2020

• Kunstforum Merdingen, Germany
  

2016

• Stadtgalerie Markdorf, Germany

2015

• Galerie im Prediger, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany

2013

• Kunstverein March e.V., Germany

2011

• Kulturforum Schorndorf e.V., Germany

2009

• Morat Institute for Art and Art History, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

2007

• Artists Workshop L6, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

1988 until now

• Lives and works in Freiburg, Germany

1988

• Relocated to Germany

1987 – 1988

• Master Year of Graphic Arts, University of Fine Art Budapest, Hungary

1982 – 1988

• University of Fine Art. Budapest, Hungary

1981 – 1982

• University of Industrial and Fine Art, Prague, Czech Republic

1974 – 1978

• College of Fine Art, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

1958

• Hayanhyarvaagin Unen Enkh was born in Dzün-Hara, Mongolia

Unen Enkh at Morat Institute for Art and Art History, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

Among all human artistic modes of expression, sculpture is by far the oldest. As recently as May this year, what is probably the oldest artwork made by human hand, namely a 40,000 year old ivory representation of the female body, was discovered west of Ulm in the eastern part of the Swabian Alb hills. Portrayals of animals of a similar age were found in the same area a few years ago. What is astonishing, however, is not the age but rather the fact that during almost the entire period, sculptures were restricted to representations of animals and people only. It was not until the early 20th century that the sculptors expanded their repertoire of motifs at a virtually explosive rate.

In terms of his selection of virtually archaic materials (Mongolian felt with different degrees of hardness resulting from the addition of synthetic resin, heavy iron wire, occasionally with horsehair and hemp cords) Unen Enkh is a sculptor in the classic sense. And he is most certainly an avant-garde artist in the way he brings humor and irony to bear when, for example, he makes use of close-­meshed steel wire to deny access to a building that ­resembles a yurt; or when he seems to suspend the law of gravity by making the attachment of a wire sculpture »invisible«.

The effect of his three-dimensional »drawings in space« made of iron wire is as astounding as it is impressive – the result is an alternation ­between genres. Neither does the long obsolete differentiation of the ­abstract from the representational help us classify Unen Enkh’s work.
For he creates both representational and abstract sculptures and, most ­importantly, every »intermediate form«.

What about the question of installation art?
Positioning a large sculpture in a space is inevitably already an installation per se. In a narrower sense of the term however, I do not consider its use in reference to Unen Enkh’s sculptures appropriate, because their form itself is not affected when presented in a different way in different spaces. Not least Unen Enkh’s own photographs of his exhibition, abundantly documented in this catalog, show just how blurred the boundaries are.

In conclusion, suffice it to say that all of Unen Enkh’s sculptures are individual pieces of work in the classic sense of the term, which does not at all impair his enormous imaginative diversity. In this respect, as a traditional sculptor Unen Enkh acts in the realm of avant-garde art by creating incredible diversity.

Franz Armin Morat

About Unen Enkh's Work Concept

Sheep Sculptures by Unen Enkh, 2005  |  Material: Wire  |  Single Sheep Size: 52 x 48 x 18 cm  |  Private Collection

»Draw me a sheep« the little Prince asked Antoine de Saint Exupéry and objected to everything the latter drew until he had drawn not a sheep but a box with a sheep in it. An act of fantasy, a victory for the power of imagination.

Unen Enkh’s herd of sheep in the former »Raum für konstruktive Kunst« in the »Hallen für Kunst« is a similar victory of the imagination. Although the tangle of wires can more clearly be perceived as a sheep. As clearly as many objects by the Mongolian artist Unen Enkh, who studied in Prague and Budapest and has been living in ­Germany since 1988 working as a freelance artist and illustrator.

(…) His works have already gone on show at the Markgräfler Museum in Müllheim (2002) and in the Georg Scholz Haus in Waldkirch, where he fitted out an ­entire room with soft felt and sparingly arranged geometric objects. In the Pfeilerhalle too, this fabric, which is so redolent of Joseph Beuys’ oeuvre, plays a major role. Yet Unen Enkh equally enjoys working with wire and any other everyday materials that are not specifically made for artistic purposes. He does this in a truly artistic way. We are ­amazed at how naturally his objects form as the product of artistic fantasy and at the presence they possess as artworks. We could almost think that, like King Midas, ­everything he touches turns to gold, that is to say art.

The fact that many of his objects, as Enkh calls all of his artworks, can be linked to our knowledge or perception of Mongolia does not strengthen any fleeting ­prejudice. Rather, this insight transports exotic or strange feelings at the foundation of the ­visual arts that also work outside that cultural domain, serving to transform the entire ­Pfeilerhalle into a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk. »Never before have I seen such a beautiful exhibition here« wrote one visitor in the exhibition guest book and we can hardly contradict him. Be it replicas of yaks’ horns, a stone balanced on thin wire netting on which we do not see the felt, or, as mentioned above, a wire herd of sheep gathered in front of a contraption that looks a bit like a shepherd’s cart, our amazement at the artist’s steady hand, which seems to have a direct link to his creativity, grows with each new viewing. (…)

Paul Klock

About the Work of Unen Enkh