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What You Need to Know: At the 2024 edition of Art Karlsruhe art fair, which platforms modern and contemporary art, the prestigious Loth Prize for Sculptures was awarded to artist Andreas Blank and his representing gallery Art Affair of Regensburg, Germany. A juried award that is supported by L-Bank, the prize is worth €20,000 and has been presented annually since 2018 to both a sculptor and gallery at one of the 21 Karlsruhe sculpture locations. “Here is a sculptor at work who places us at the heart of his artistic conception of our real world and its social conditions” the jury commented. “Where does the irony lead the viewer, the consumer of these tableaux of thought, into a thought-provoking learning process?” To mark the occasion, a selection of works by the artist are on view at Art Affair.
About the Artist: German post-war and contemporary artist Andreas Blank (b. 1976) currently lives and works between Aurach and Berlin and is best known for his hyperrealist stone sculptures. He studied at the Karlsruhe Art Academy under Professor Harald Klingelhoeller and the Hoschschule fuer Bildende Kuenste Hamberg respectively, as well as the Royal College of Art London. He began exhibiting in group shows in 2007, and his first solo show was at Galerie Christian Ehrentraut in Berlin, after which he went on to exhibit in solo shows around the world, including in New York and Seoul. Blanks has become a master of leveraging the natural qualities of stone, such as color and texture, to recreate everyday objects that, as works of art, engage with questions of perception and existence.
Why We Like It: At first look, visitors approaching Blank’s sculptures could be forgiven for mistaking them for found object assemblages. Compositions include a briefcase with a carefully folded white shirt on top, a pair of boots in a cardboard box, and a crushed plastic bottle—all expertly carved from various types of stone. Although predominantly driven by method and material, the composition and choice of objects represented speak to a conceptual and emotional underpinning, inviting the viewer to not only consider the artist’s choices, but how their own personal response as well.
See featured works by the artist below.
Andreas Blank, Still Life with Plastic Bottles (2024). Courtesy of Art Affair, Regensburg.
Andreas Blank, Box with Military Boots (2010). Courtesy of Art Affair, Regensburg.
Andreas Blank, Void (2024). Courtesy of Art Affair, Regensburg.
Andreas Blank, Monument (2023). Courtesy of Art Affair, Regensburg.
Andreas Blank, Seeing things that are too big to see, after Paul Shepheard, The Cultivated Wilderness (2021). Courtesy of Art Affair, Regensburg.
Work by Andreas Blank is on view at Galerie Art Affair, Regensburg.
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