Artwork of the month - video (56 sec)

Stèle - Telling Stories

Year	2021
Size	52 cm x 32 cm x 14 cm
Materials	black clay, ceramic glaze
Options	/
Edition	1/1
For Sale	Yes, contact our gallery Fred&Ferry (Antwerp, BE)
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Since 2019, Robbert&Frank Frank&Robbert have been documenting the world and their artistic practice through drawings engraved into clay. These clay tablets are all the same size and form a pictographic series that steadily continues to grow. The tablets are presented either individually or all together as a series, mounted on the wall using the accompanying F- and R-screws.

This first stele in their oeuvre represents a new step in the same sculptural process. The two-dimensional aspect of the clay tablet remains but is reinforced by the underlying support to become an independent, three-dimensional object in space. The curved top breaks with the severe rectangular format of the previous tablets and refers formally to stelae – Etruscan, Egyptian and ancient Meso-American in particular – whose rounded upper sections refer to the cosmos / the sky / the sun.

Historically, steles were most often used as monuments, grave markers or as a means to identify a special location.

This stele by Frank&Robbert, rather than documenting a performance or an action, tells a symbolic story of its own. Created in the period when both artists became fathers, this stele is an attempt to represent their feelings surrounding fatherhood. We see two figures holding an object that seems to represent constellations in the sky. This object is given to the serpent – a water creature that symbolises transformation. We are all part of a larger cycle and each generation passes on what it considers important.

This stele is a contemporary monument, as it were, that seeks to forge a connection across the boundaries of time and space.

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