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When first I met Guido Häfner (born 1968 in Schlaifhausen/Upper
Franconia/Bavaria) some years ago, at the Frankfurt Book Fair,
Guido occupied himself mainly with sculptures made from steel
plates. These funny, enigmatic sculptures were clear and archaic
in their simplicity. They aroused great interest; visitors
at the stand or passers-by grinned quietly to themselves without
knowing why.
On a number of occasions, I have organized the international
art project 'HolzART' ('wood art') in the Franconian town
of Kronach, birthplace of the Renaissance painter Lukas Cranach,
and in surrounding communities. I approached Häfner about
the use of wood, especially tree-trunks up to 1.5 metres thick,
for his work. The reason for this idea was that I had experience
of pulling trunks to public spaces for sculptors and sculptresses
to work on during the 'open workshop project'.
During our conversation, I sensed immediately that Guido
Häfner already imagined himself hewing a huge tree-trunk
with a chain-saw.
After the book fair, Häfner gave me his o.k. I found
two poplar-trunks for his use, each approximately 1.5 metres
in diameter and 6 metres long. His 'open workshop' was situated
in the so-called 'Paradise' in Weißenbrunn (District
of Kronach). The trunks were so heavy that they had first
to be worked on the spot before loading by crane.
Häfner created 'Adam & Eve' - what else 'In Paradise'?
They were pleasingly earthy and sturdy - hacked from trunks
with his chain-saw. At the following exhibition, along the
way up to the Rosenberg fortress, the couple welcomed the
visitors, and the sculptures were controversial for their
creator's straightforward approach. Later, the figures were
to be found on display at the stand of the Bavarian Forestry
Office at the Bavarian Horticultural Show of 2002 in Kronach
and became something of an attraction for the sculptors working
there. Among these was of course Guido Häfner, who then
went on to create the first 'wooden heads of Kronach', again
using his chain-saw.
At that time, from October to July, Guido Häfner continued
working with wood and found his own language just as he had
done with his steel silhouettes. Just how successful his wood
sculptures have become in the meantime is shown by the fact
that in the following year wooden heads by Häfner were
on display at the Frankfurt Book Fair. As a result he was
invited to Taiwan to work at the book-fair. At Taipeh Zoo,
he attracted such a throng of media and visitors, that his
work area had to be cordoned off.
In spite of his success, the open-natured Guido Häfner
is always ready to talk about his work. He is an artist who
lets the work of his colleagues stand, but goes his own, unmistakable,
way.
Of course, I am glad that is was me who introduced Guido
Häfner to the material wood.
When you watch Häfner work, he seems to perform horseback
acrobatics at the tree-trunk. This shows how thouroughly he
knows the trunk, how he is really going into it. You realize
a certain kind of awe. He does not work on an abstract level;
I think he considers himself as an onlooker, as a learner
during his work.
If you think that Guido Häfner's sculptures reveal themselves
at first sight - quite the opposite is true! The concrete
figure is more important to him; that is his philosophy, his
analysis of subjects. In contrast to his brother, the artist
Johannes Häfner, who converts his ideas and dreams mainly
with a computer mouse into graphics, Guido Häfner extracts
them from a tree-trunk with a chain-saw.
The quality of Guido Häfner's work becomes apparent
in the realisation of his visions. They do not stay in the
artist's head, but materialize in a comprehensible way.
By working with his hands, sometimes with brute force, Guido
Häfner is alway close to nature. He himself says that
he prefers an archaic simplicity, because therein lies everything:
love, pain, wit, melancholy. And yet, it is not that simple,
if you think of the portraits of 'Peregrinus', 'George Pepusch',
'Königskasper' ('King Caspar'), Kopfrüssler ('Trunk
Head'), to name but a few.
Guido Häfner is an artist worth discovering.
Ingo Cesaro
March 2004 Translated by Cornelia Göbel
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