Gereon Krebber (b. Oberhausen, 1973, lives in Cologne) works not only with wood and ceramics but also with lots of unusual materials, such as gelatine, pig ears, spray foam, burnt wood and chewing gum, to create his objects, which are often humorous and sometimes grotesque in appearance. For example, his seven-metre-high sculpture Deemed (2008), which he made in situ for the 2008 edition of Lustwarande, Wanderland, was made of rubber, clingfilm and air. His work is often site-specific and explicitly enters into a relationship with the architecture of the space. Sculptures can hang from the ceiling or extend across walls, but also crawl through vents, block entrances or wind around pillars. The works therefore influence both the experience of the exhibition space and – to a large extent – the way in which the visitor moves through the space.

Inspiration for the amorphous structures of his mostly large-format objects are forms from nature, and so they often have a physical and lively character. Krebber’s sculptures therefore remind the viewer very much of things that we know from nature, but which he has distorted, mixed, enlarged, disintegrated, abstracted and given unexpected curves and bulges. Associations with animals, plants, minerals and fruits come to mind. For example, gelatine or ground-up cow parts combined with glycerine and water produce a mixture that, after hardening, feels similar to the skin of the human body. But then there is that sudden contrast with machine-made objects or cleanly polished surfaces. Krebber searches for the intersection between the organic and the man-made. As a result, his work feels familiar but at the same time completely strange.

For STATIONS, Krebber made a massive, six-metre-long tar-black sculpture, which looks like a broken barrel with a tongue sticking out. Like most of Krebber’s works, this sculpture presented the visitor with a puzzle: what am I looking at, what is it made of, and what does it mean?