Skin - The human skin as a metaphor for boundary

The sculptor Caspar Berger (*1965) studied at the AKI in Enschede and the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. He mainly works in bronze. His personal, contemporary vision is inspired by the Italian Renaissance. He works from silicon casts of models and his own body. At the end of 2007 Berger had his first major retrospective exhibition entitled Imago at Museum Beelden aan Zee. Five of his recent works, all based on his own skin, are shown here under the title Skin.

more information on 'Skin' in museum 'Beelden aan Zee.

Self-portraits
Self-portraits are a recurring element in Berger's work. This is quite normal for painters but is an unusual practice for sculptors. He approaches the self-portrait in terms of his technical and physical limitations and by subjecting his own body to research from a historical, mental and/or social self-awareness. In this respect he experiments with new forms and techniques and explores boundaries in order to overstep them. As the essential boundary between the interior and exterior, for him the skin is a personal, cultural and political membrane. He manipulates this boundary by giving it different, surprising and confrontational forms. The abstract power of this creative urge becomes concrete in the self-portraits, in which he searches for the quantity of 'self' that is required to make a true likeness.

Torso ZZM/Self-portrait 6, 2008
Caspar Berger made the work Torso ZZM in 2008 as a commission from the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen. This work is on long-term loan to Museum Beelden aan Zee. The bronze sculpture is based on the Belvedere Torso in the Vatican collection. This Athenian fragment has been a symbol of classical sculpture since around 1500 and has inspired artists including Michelangelo, Rubens, Bernini and Rodin. Berger has literally stretched his skin around this work and so inextricably binds our identity as cultural skin to a centuries-old art-historical tradition. Our cultural skin both measures itself against and embraces this icon.

David/Self-portrait 11, 2009
Here too Berger has transformed a sculptural icon: the head of Michelangelo's David, whose head he has used life-size. How must this icon of heroism have viewed the world and how have fantasies about this become a political instrument? From a distance this David resembles the David we all know, but close up we lose focus. For Berger, the embodiment of heroism has many faces and so he has subtly built the head up out of numerous small self-portraits. It is external projection that makes David into a portrait, within a portrait. The increase in scale is a conscious stylistic element.

Self-portrait 9, 2009
Here Berger uses his skin as a boundary between inside and outside. The skin gives the body a 'face', from which we literally derive our identity. Here that identity is presented folded, like a luxury item of clothing. The skin has been detached from its body and has room for new meanings.

Vera Icon / Self-portrait 10, 2010
The cloth bearing the words 'Vera icon' is a reference to the linen Veil of Veronica, or sweat-cloth, which, as tradition has it, she used to wipe the sweat and blood from Christ's face. Miraculously, an image of Christ's face was left on the cloth. The linen cloth as a metaphor for the bearer of the true image envelops Self-portrait 10, a self-portrait in the form of a medallion. On this medallion, an object which usually bears the portrait of a dignitary, the self-portrait is examined as the true image of the proud, self-assured artist. The artist as his own maker, adopting the role of a god. Vera icon/self-portrait 10 is presented in 2010 in a bronze and silver version, by the Vereniging voor Penningkunst (the Dutch society for numismatic art).

Personal Space, 2010
This is one part of the project Personal Space. Here the artist questions which space is his and which belongs to his environment. By folding and stitching his 'silicon skins' in a variety of ways, Berger redefines the notion of personal space and questions which volume is indisputably ours and which is questionable.

Self-portrait 14, 2011
The artist's most recent work consists of a smooth bronze bust covered with a silver skin. The bust as a smooth anonymous vehicle without the characteristics of a skin is given identity by the highly detailed silver layer with the artist's face. This silver skin, formed on its base, is held aloft and provides the bust with its identity, even if they are two components. This is a way of exploring the identity of the skin in all its fragility.