The Key
2009, Limestone, 230 x 220 x 180 cm, Museumspark Kalkriese
Susanne Tunn’s stone sculpture does not tell any stories. Instead, it contains a history – in the shape of stored time. This time has several overlapping dimensions. The stone – a limestone from a quarry near Würzburg – enshrines the endless duration of its growth. The sculptress Susanne Tunn sees her own work process as a patient, almost meditative approach to the material, and therefore as a process whose own temporality is visualised by means of the inscriptions in the stone. And then there is the temporal dimension of its history.
The sculpture does not report anything, does not refer to any event, not either to the Varus Battle. But its earnestness, reminiscent of a monument, sensitises us to the immediate presence of history. The stone remains silent – and yet it seems as though it had always been there, almost as if you could listen inside it, back to a past era, as in an endlessly deep well. (…)
Stefan Lüddemann
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