Jo Schöpfer

Jo Schöpfer (*1951 in Coburg) lives and works in Berlin. Since the mid-1970s he has been working on the borderline between sculpture and architecture. The fundamental constant that runs, so to speak, immaterially through his work is space. “Immaterial” because space can only be experienced and lived if it is “formed”. Jo Schöpfer forms space through sculptures and structures, which he realizes as bronze casts: open containers, such as the group of Absinthe sculptures; folded surfaces (zigzag), free-standing on the floor or on pedestals, divide the space like screens. (Reliefs), whose titles refer to boxes or shelves, hang on the wall; next to them, the fine, mostly watercolored drawings by Jo Schöpfer, to which the artist gives a lot of space on the sheet, assert themselves with ease. Formally, one would classify these works as non-representational, but of course they are by no means – certainly not in a static sense. They are representational and present in their captivating clarity. And they constitute a space that necessarily includes us as viewers and keeps us in motion.