Bernhard Heiliger

Tag und Nacht, 1983

Bernard Heiliger’s plinthless floor sculpture Tag und Nacht [Day and Night] is a representative example of his avoidance of a closed sculptural core and his dissection of the overall form. The massive metal sheets with a rusty patina, circular discs, girders, segments and spheres in iron seem to have been brought to a standstill only for a short time, in order to spread out into their surroundings again the next minute. The dialectic of the title is reflected in an assembly and opposition of elements in repose and dynamic ones, line and sphere, attraction and repulsion. This large sculpture, designed to be viewed from all sides, is made into a monument by the addition of an inscribed plate in memory of forced labourers in the Second World War and calling for sustained peace.