florian hafele: distorted human body sculpture

‘social panopticum i’, 2011 by florian hafele plastic, wood, and paint 49x20x23 cmall images courtesy of carbon12

the sculptures of vienna and innsbruck-based artist florian hafele all feature a highly-contorted version of reality. hafele’s sensibility speaks to the notion of human performance within society and the resulting feeling of being over-strained or twisted in order to meet seemingly universal standards in addition to ‘saving face’. hafele’s pieces featuring a human figure never show the face of the by erasing the the humanity of the figures in eliminating facial expression combined with the placement of the figure’s limbs with added shapes, the single dimensional and desperate reality

of the figure is highlighted.

hafele has created the ‘social panopticum’ sculptural series. the collection features three figures who possess geometric shapes growing from their faceless forms. the artist forms the deformed or contorted human bodies from pvc and paint, plastic, wood or bronze materials.

‘social panopticum iii’, 2011 plastic, wood, and paint 51x20x23 cm

‘social panopticum ii’, 2011 plastic, wood, and paint 47x20x23 cm

‘smoking driller’, 2009 by florian hafele

older works by the artist portray a similar sense of performance as inducing of anxiety through the jarring use of an abstracted reality. 

left: ‘champion’, 2007, mixed media sculpture, © florian hafele right: ‘anna’, 2008, mixed media sculpture, © florian hafele

via collabcubed