25. Makt

ARTIST: Richard Brixel (1998)
TECHNIQUE: Bronze

As you can see there are two works here entitled Power and Caryatid. They are placed right next to the café from whose veranda you have a good view of Power.

Power has an image of cunning self-righteousness. The figure reeks of ruthlessness and egoism. He is comfortably leaning back with a hundred percent control of his environment and with a view of the world. His head is protected by a helmet and a visor. His face is not visible; there are no eyes to meet. This man in power spreads his legs exposing his sex to show what you must be equipped with to be powerful in a patriarchal society. This work of art can certainly evoke strong feelings. It is uncensored, raw. But it also evokes reflection. Who is this person? What doe he represent? Why does he feel comfortable in this rather exposed position?

The woman sculpture Caryatid is an open and close sculpture much more intimate and humane. Her head is the only part well worked through. It is as if the body were not important. Instead focus is on her gaze and the possibility of a meeting. Although in this case, she is probably longing for a different meeting, since she is turning her head away from the man. She looks out to the horizon knowing that somewhere there is a possibility.

The sculpture has lightness, perhaps because the original caryatids at Parthenon in Athens had to hold up a heavy parapet on their heads. On the mount the Caryatid escapes the weight of society. Instead she exists in a time when gender patterns are broken up.

Brixel´s works are cast in bronze with a green patina. As sculptures they are traditional, even if you as a viewer above all pay attention to the tough modernistic idiom. You can see that Brixel has spent time and energy on scratching, scraping and squeezing the model done in clay, the details are many.

Richard Brixel was born in Stockholm in 1943; he died in 2019. He was a Swedish sculptor educated at Stockholm University. He was a free-place scholar for Professor and sculptor Bror Marklund at the Academy of Art. He has also studied at the College of Arts, Craft and Design. He has many public works around Sweden. Some of them are: Mona in Nora, Balance in Örebro, e=m2 in Eskilstuna, Lightning in Ludvika and Beauty here in the Kumla City Park.

Early on in his career Brixel worked a lot with social themes, avant-garde programs of action and staged spectacular performances in urban settings to present art to many. Over the years he returned to an older sculptural tradition. As he did so he turned to timeless themes. He started to use bronze as material instead of what he had used earlier, that is, plastics, newspaper, concrete and wood.

Bronze with a patina is loaded with history and tradition that increase the visual weight of the sculpture. His sculptures radiate energy and power.

As mentioned earlier Brixel has yet another sculpture in Kumla, that is Beauty in the city park. But this is not the only work of his in town. There is also a work entitled Philospher placed in the library of Kumla. Originally it was placed at Art at the Top but was later replaced by Caryatid.