Wet Suit 1

– The price includes an MDF shipping crate worth €300

– For deliveries outside Germany, additional delivery charges apply, which will be calculated on a case-by-case basis following consultation — depending on where the artwork is to be sent.

2018

Construction foam, spray paint, epoxy resin, metal hoses

Konstantin Lischkoff-Knecht’s sculpture forms part of a series of objects created from everyday industrial materials, whose original function is transformed into a new aesthetic and conceptual order. The starting point is an inflatable swimming toy, whose air-filled body is replaced by expanding construction foam. The ephemeral cavity of a consumer object is thereby transformed into a permanent sculptural form. The temporary toy gives rise to a form that appears both familiar and alien.

As in the other works in the series, the material itself plays a central role here too. The can of construction foam acts as a spatial counterpart to the spray can and possesses a distinct ready-made character. Lischkoff-Knecht is less interested in the perfect mastery of the material than in its own internal logic: the swelling, expansion and solidification. The sculpture emerges through a process that combines control and unpredictability, allowing the material itself to become a co-creator.

The surface is particularly striking. Unlike the organic, bubble-like structures of earlier works, it is reminiscent of digital polygon models from the world of early computer graphics. The form appears as though it had been taken from a virtual space and subsequently materialised. Faceted refractions and angular transitions lend the object a peculiar tension between analogue materiality and digital aesthetics. The violet colour further reinforces this impression. It removes the sculpture from the realm of the natural and lends it an almost artificial, technoid character.

Metallic tubes run through the body, emerging from the surface at various points and wrapping themselves around the form. They are reminiscent of technical supply systems, biological pathways and cybernetic connections. As a result, the object no longer appears as a self-contained sculpture, but as part of a larger, invisible network. The tubes suggest energy flows, data streams or vital functions whose origin and destination remain hidden. The figure appears less like an animal than a hybrid being, somewhere between an organism and a machine.

It is precisely in this ambivalence that the work reveals its conceptual strength. The original dolphin remains recognisable as the basic form, yet is overlaid and transformed by technological elements. The sculpture exists on the borderline between natural form and artefact, between biological evolution and technical construction. It addresses a present in which the boundaries between organic life and artificial extension are becoming increasingly permeable.

In this work, Lischkoff-Knecht combines experimentation with materials, pop culture and media reflection to create a sculpture that is both humorous and unsettling. The familiar figure of the swimming creature is stripped of its innocence and placed in a state of permanent transformation. What initially appears playful develops, upon closer inspection, into an exploration of physicality, technology and the question of how identity is formed in an increasingly hybrid world. The sculpture thus becomes a being that exists between categories – half a memory of a toy, half a premonition of a future creature.