The sculptures of the Spanish artist Samuel Salcedo feature contrasting elements. His objects stand mostly isolated in their empty environments, raw and vulnerable, endearing as they show their emotions.
After the reconstruction of the former AOK administrative building, he is going to create sculptures for the public space that will interact with the visitors.
‘Artists think how they can change things that already exist. We process what we have learned and try to do things in a different, contemporary way. That’s what artists have always done. And that’s what I do: I express the things and the people I see in a different way. Sometimes this work is fast and appears very easy, but sometimes it’s hard and you have to work more and more. I create expressions of the face. Depending on how you feel and how you look at my work, you will find an expression nice or sad. So people who see the art will complete the expression, will interact. My work is a dialogue between the one who is working and the one who will see my art later. I want to talk to the people and – under this influence – I let my art grow. When I work I never plan; I never do sketches. I always start to work directly. My theme is life and people. How do I see the others and how do the others see me? I have often experienced that you have an idea about somebody but then you find out that the person is not always as you imagine.
During the last five years, I have been to Berlin three to five times a year, also with a solo exhibition. The size of Berlin is so different from what I know – it is giant. The scale is different to Barcelona, where I live. This is something that has made me grow as well. When I am in Berlin, I always try to do something bigger.
When I saw that building in Luisenstadt, I knew immediately: this space needs something bigger. The building is amazing, and I will go through a whole new process. With my work I want to surprise people, do something new. I think about faces that lay around like big balls that seem to have fallen down. I like this idea of someone who has appeared like a meteorite that has fallen to the earth. Lying around for example behind trees or in the entrance hall – that is somehow strange. I want to do some kind of surprising expression. Maybe I will use expressions like tenderness or love – it will all grow. Eventually the trees will give shadow and thus change the meaning of the expressions. The materials that I am thinking of working with are materials that will change. Surfaces and colours transformed by the Berlin weather, that would be interesting.
I want to create with an open meaning, so that everybody can find something for themselves in it. Then it will not only be my work, but the work of all the people together, as well as the architects and designers who work on the transformation of the building. And finally, the people who live there will complete the meaning of all this work, because my work is suggesting.’