Page 4 - La Biennale di Venezia issue of World of Art Magazine

HANS-JOACHIM HORSTMANN: FEMALE
TORSO #2, 1994 BRONZE SCULPTURE
4.7X4.7X11.8 IN. | 12X12X30 CM. THE ARE ARTISTS NECESSARY
SURFACE IST INTENTIONALLY MADE
ROUGH TO SHOW (700 B.C). I WILTHE OR GOOD-FOR-NOTHINGS?
MATERIAL BUILDING A HUMAN BODY. by Hans-Joachim Horstmann
IT MAY BE THE BODY OF A MAENADE,
INSPIRED BY “THEOGONIE” FROM
HESIOD.
The German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-
1716) asked, “Why is something and not nothing?” Like
everybody else, I suppose, there is something and not
nothing. But I do not ask Why?, since I cannot answer this
question. I cannot KNOW. Other people can’t either. They can
only claim or believe to know.

Since obviously there IS something, is it the Greek CHAOS
of Hesiod (ca. 700 B.C.), the gaping void? No, because this
findable something is structured. Is it evil? No, as I see
harmonies from the beginning. They, so I think, cannot be
“evil”. Maybe there was something like a terrible mess of
the first “particles” after the big bang and prior to further
cooling, but then hydrogen atoms formed. Apparently,
they were the most stable structures compared to other
more instable ones (which fell prey to the first Darwinian
selection). But if this something was not “evil”, then it was
neutral or even good, meaning – to me – productive to
develop more complex forms of matter.

Please allow me to make a brief digression into chemistry:
The first atoms (hydrogen [H], helium [He]), together with
other elements, bred later in suns, fit into a periodic table
of the elements which arranges them according to their
properties. I am no theoretical chemist, but biologist (and
biochemist), so please excuse if I attribute human response
to these elements. So, I imagine that elements put an effort
into having or attaining completely occupied electron shells,
which are initially present in the inert gases (helium, neon)
and explain their disinclination to react. For me, as an artist,
this is an immanent harmony which is inherent in this
matter. On the left in the periodic table, there are what is
called the alkali metals (lithium, sodium, potassium) which
only have one electron in the next outer shell. They “like”
to lose it so as to dissolve in the form of positive ions in
aqueous solutions. On the right in the periodic table, there
is the group of halogens (fluoride, chloride) whose electron
shells are almost complete: they greedily absorb the free
electrons contained in solutions of alkali metals, thus having
craftily attained the harmony of a complete shell. But what

4 WORLD of ART