Holon  |  2015  |  Felt · Horsehair · Hemp Cords · Iron Wire  |  272 x 276 x 1,522 cm 
 

In his exploration of the culture of his homeland, Unen Enkh has found his very own artistic language. The artist builds his objects, often several meters in size, on a network of knotted wires. He sews the net-like wire mesh with pieces of felt. The nomadic shepherds of Mongolia use the durable and warming felt, which is also light and portable, and the tear-resistant and braidable horsehair to make their stable and protective tents, the yurts. The felt gives the objects a surface that is partly skin-like and barky, partly brittle, and makes them appear like organically grown structures. The delicate wire construction gives the forms something vague and open and enables flowing transitions between the captured internal form and the external space.

In the exhibition in the Galerie im Prediger, Unen Enkh bundles his sculptural vocabulary in the site-specific sculpture »Holon«: In it, he links individual objects and forms to form a large, funnel-shaped form that is more than 15 meters long. Floating in the center of the room like an airship, it has a space-filling and space-forming effect at the same time. The title »Holon« is based on a term coined by Arthur Koestler in 1967 and hotly debated in the context of integral theories. Derived from the Greek word hólos (whole), it means a whole that is part of another whole, also called »whole/part«. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Unen Enkh’s objects refer to holistic structures. In their individual presence in exhibition spaces, they always form groups, relate to one another and are in dialogue with one another. This interaction of the individual objects formulates an ongoing process in which each object already contains the potential for a new form.

Like all of the artist’s works, the sculpture »Holon« also refers to space. It is about spatiality as a whole and the balance of different aspects, about inside and outside, stable and fragile, light and heavy, hard and soft, natural and artificial. The unconventional, largely ephemeral materials — Mongolian felt, horsehair, hemp cords and iron wire - give the form a very unique material quality. In their fragmentary appearance, they refer to the timelessness of natural cycles, to growth and decay. The sculptural line structure of the iron wire creates an almost endless network of relationships that defies all limitations and opens up new spatial and temporal relationships. The entire work evokes an in-between: between solid form and the fleeting, the decided and the undecided, closedness and permeability. As a space-filling, three-dimensional »drawing in space«, the sculpture can only be grasped and experienced by alternating between close-up and distant perception — it must be walked around and circumnavigated.

This spatial understanding reveals the artist’s worldview: it is rooted in the almost endless spatial expanse that Unen Enkh personally experienced in his homeland of Mongolia and which he did not rediscover in its sensuality in his adopted home of Germany, but which he transformed into his artistic work. Unen Enkh’s work thus touches on fundamental questions such as: »Where do we come from?«, »What is home actually?« and »What do we leave behind?«.

»Galerie im Prediger«, Exhibition 2015, Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany