BRÜDER / BROTHERS

BRÜDER examines the body as the arena for seemingly contradictory forces. Two figures appear not as separate individuals, but as an inextricably intertwined form. Everything compels the viewer to abandon the ability to perceive perpetrator and victim as neatly separated entities. The work does not merely assert: “Violence is wrong.” It demonstrates: Violence rests upon a delusion regarding the nature of reality—upon the error that the Other is truly separate from oneself. BRÜDER is not the depiction of a conflict with morally distributed roles: here the guilty perpetrator, there the pure victim. Abel’s clenched fist does not negate his status as a victim, yet it rejects the sentimental idealization of the victim. BRÜDER represents two poles of the same human potential. The work denies the viewer the comfortable stance of identifying exclusively with Abel while banishing Cain to the periphery. Perhaps therein lies the true, uncomfortable gravity of the sculpture.