DER HOLZMENSCHBAUER

For Andreas Kuhnlein creation is an act of violence that enables him to find something special in a piece of wood and set it free. Armed with a chainsaw the Bavarian artist works with anger, anxiety and desperation. Figures emerge from the wood, as well as something of himself. 

Kuhnlein wasn't always a sculptor. He used to be employed as an officer in the Federal Border Police, patrolling the border between the two Germanies. His work often conflicted with his own personal convictions and at the start of the 1980s he finally broke with his hitherto middle-class outlook. He resigned from his job and spent several years struggling to reconcile his beliefs.

Particularly angered by a statement from the former Cardinal Josef Ratzinger he picked up his chainsaw and created the sculpture 'Großinquisitor' (the great inquisitor) in one single session. This moment was his liberation. "The first thirty years of my life I had no interest in art or museums," he says, "But then it changed for the better."