About the work

A slender stainless-steel sculpture that moves elegantly into the space, as if it were gracefully swinging its hips. However, the work of the sculptor actually forbids any kind of association with the figurative, because his oeuvre has been characterised from the start by logical-rational structures and an abstract-geometrical repertoire of forms.

The title of this work – Stretched Triple – refers to its structure composed of three elongated cuboids. However, as with Hilgemann’s other sculptures, one can here too trace back the dimensions to the cube that forms the basis for all of his works.

While his works of stone and marble dealt with problems of mass and density, the so-called Implosionen (Implosions) he has created since 1984 are dedicated to the themes of volume and emptiness. In the process, the sculptor builds on his discovery that the removal of the element of air is capable of pressing large, stable vessels of steel. Thus, Hilgemann allows the stringent, geometrical forms of his sculptures to collapse by removing the air from the hollow stainless-steel objects. In this way, cubes, cuboids and pyramids collapse into themselves, fold and deform, as if they had been impacted by a powerful, external force.