Karsten Födinger

The structures of the German artist Karsten Födinger exude a raw physicality. Their materials — cast concrete, iron, cement and gypsum plasterboard, for instance — embody power and functionality, and tend to be deployed in a similar manner to how they might be used on a construction site: reinforcing one another and frequently being protected by wood and scaffolding as though in a state prior to completion. Recalling the arresting simplicity of Minimalist and Process art, Födinger’s structures convey also the sense of having a purpose, yet one that is curiously absent, completed only in the imagination.