CASPAR BERGER

In the work of Caspar Berger, which is part of conceptual art, current events and the canon of art history play an important role. Starting with the self-portrait and his own body, the artist deals with themes such as freedom, mortality and political (and religious) systems in his creations.

He uses a range of materials, including bronze, silver, gold, silicone, epoxy, wood and felt, as well as multimedia and video installations, individually or in combination. His work is grouped in series around the following thematic lines: Skin, Skeleton, Universe and Spirit.
Caspar Berger was born in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on 24 January 1965. From 1984 to 1990 he studied Spatial and Plastic Design at the Academy of Art & Design (AKI) in Enschede, where he was taught by Maja van Hall, Ad Gerritse, Albert van der Weide, Helen Frik and Hans Ebeling Koning, among others. His training focused not on classical sculpture but on sculptural composition. Berger produced mixed-media works based on abstract constructions in combination with video. While attending the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht between 1990 and 1992, he was inspired by the work of video artists such as Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman and Nam June Paik. Later, his admiration for the Italian High Renaissance led him to turn to sculpture. It was his former teacher Ad Gerritse who awakened in him a renewed interest in figurative art with conceptual meaning.

In 2007, Caspar Berger's first solo retrospective opened at the Beelden aan Zee Museum in Scheveningen, the seaside district of The Hague, paving the way for the public at large. The exhibition brought together a wide range of works, including Pietà, conceived as a memorial to all mothers who mourn the loss of a son or daughter. The composition is based on Michelangelo's Madonna Dolorosa, holding the body of the crucified Jesus Christ in her arms, one of the most perfect images in the history of art. There was also Family, a tribute to the social group into which one is born, with particular attention to the power structures involved. By giving his works a deliberately ‘corroded’ appearance, Berger relativises his position in relation to sculptors such as Cellini and Michelangelo, for him the great masters of art history.

Several of Berger's compositions are part of Dutch museum collections, including Museum Beelden aanZee (The Hague), Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) and Singer Laren (Laren), as well as the art collections of companies such as ING Bank and the Achmea Art Collection. Abroad his works can be found in the Fundació NUMA - Espais de Cultura in Menorca (Spain), in the Katrin Bellinger Collection (London) and in the Municipality of Bad Homburg (Germany), to mention a few examples. Berger also produced several large-scale sculptures on commission. His work was awarded the Singer Prize 2013 and the Sacha Tanja Penning Prize 2014.

EXHIBITED WORKS:

- SELF PORTRAIT 14, silver, glass, oil, 2013.