Monument to the Five Senses 1991

Lubo Kristek’s ‘Monument to the Five Senses’ stands in Landsberg am Lech, pieced together with an almost Frankenstein-like approach to sculpture. It’s the kind of work where you can practically feel the artist figuring things out as he goes, a real testament to artmaking as a process. Kristek’s sculpture has a real tactile quality, doesn't it? The metal, with its rough edges and visible joins, invites you to run your hands over it, to feel the weight and texture of each component. The color, a muted blue-gray, adds to the sense of something salvaged and repurposed, and the way he's assembled these disparate elements—an eye here, an ear there, all resting on a hand—it feels almost like a dream. And that hand, supporting everything. It’s so vulnerable, yet so strong. It reminds me a bit of Picasso, maybe a touch of Kurt Schwitters, in the way it takes ordinary objects and transforms them into something extraordinary, sparking conversations across time and space. It doesn't give you easy answers, and maybe that's the point.