Asian Spring
Wolfgang Stiller is an artist from Wiesbaden, Germany. His inspiration comes from objects and materials that already possess a specific value and use. His technique is to give them a second life, a different meaning.
There are two steps that consistently reappear in his work. Firstly, there is the moment when the idea has just been born, when he has to grasp it in order to develop and envisage it. Then there is the moment when he locates the perfect material for its creation.
For his new installation, ‘Matchstick Men’, he was first inspired by plastic heads previously used for a film in China. He came up with the idea of associating them with bamboo sticks recovered from an old installation. Placed in a cardboard box, these "matches" can be interpreted in a thousand different ways. Their tired expressions and their burnt heads with slanted eyes, stored in a box of matches, can suggest fear, decapitation, closed-mindedness or over-conviction. An alternative interpretation suggests that Stiller simply wanted to denounce the Chinese political system, as some critics have implied.
