Caspar Berger
Caspar Berger makes conceptual art in which current events and the art historical canon play a major role. In this, the self-portrait and his own body is often the starting point for works of art in which themes such as freedom, mortality and political (belief) systems play an important role. Berger uses a wide variety of materials, including bronze, silver, gold, silicone, epoxy, wood and felt, as well as video and multimedia or a combination thereof. Caspar Berger’s oeuvre divides into a series of extensive series; themes herein are: Skin, Skeleton, Universe and Spirit.
At Skin, the starting point is human skin. The skin defines the boundary between the internal body of the personal “I” and the impersonal of the external world. For Skeleton, Berger used a CT scan to create an exact 3D copy of his skeleton in 2012. Our “eternal” identity, the identity that can tell something about who we were even after we die, is the starting point. At Universe, Berger focuses on the space occupied by humans in social and political situations. Who are we in relation to our physical, social and political space, and how does our unique identity relate to the collective fantasies by which we are formed. And at Spirit, the most recently launched project series, Berger explores the theme of life attitudes and life questions that arise out of human deficiency. Not only does the superhuman significance of Spirit apply here, but also the mental attitude one can adopt in our social, political and societal environment.
Berger was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on Jan. 24, 1965. He studied Plastic and Spatial Forms at the AKI in Enschede from 1984 to 1990. There he was taught by Maja van Hall, Ad Gerritse, Albert van der Weide, Helen Frik, and Hans, among others. Ebeling King. The focus here was not classical sculpture but the composition of a sculpture. Berger created mixed-media work of abstract constructions combined with video. During his post-academic time at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, from 1990 to 1992, he became inspired by the work of video artists such as Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman and Nam June Paik.
Influenced by his admiration for the Italian high renaissance he then for sculpture. Influenced by his former teacher Ad Gerritse, there is a renewed interest in figurative art with a conceptual meaning.
In 2007, the in the Netherlands his first museum solo exhibition at museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague-Scheveningen, which paves the paving the way towards the larger audience. There he exhibited a wide range of works, including his version of a Pietà., asmonument to all mothers with dead sons, a work based on Michelangelo‘s version of the mourning Mary with her crucified son in her arms, one of the most perfect images in art history. Also there was the work Family view, ea tribute ato the social group in which you were born is born with the power structures associated with the concept of family. With the deliberately “affected” appearance, Berger puts his position in relation to sculptors such as Cellini and Michelangelo, whom he considers his most important examples in art history.
Salvage works are located in various Dutch museum collections as museum Images by the Sea in The Hague-Scheveningen, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, museum Singer Laren, and in corporate collections such as ING Collection and the Achmea Art Collection. In abroad for example, in the Fundació NUMA – Espais the Cultura, (Spain) Menorca, Spain, the Katrin Bellinger Collection and the municipality Bad Homburg. Berger realized also several large workand commissioned. His work was awarded the Singer Prize 2013 and the 2014 Sacha Tanja Penning.
Photography works: Erik and Petra Hesmerg
Photography process: Annick Vroom and Caspar Berger
Website design: Anne Lakeman
Implementation website: Flowhub