Description:

The monumental work "Big Player" is in the tradition of late modern material and process art, but reflects contemporary discourses on sustainability and resource awareness. The circular composition, realized in graduated coal and real copper, transcends the purely formal aesthetics of minimalist art and opens up a complex dialogue between industrial heritage and contemporary material aesthetics.

The materials used are not only relevant in terms of formal aesthetics, but also give the work cultural and historical significance: the coal, as a witness to industrialization and at the same time as a fossil remnant of geological processes, points to the ambivalence of human development. Copper, on the other hand, one of the oldest metals used by humans, symbolizes both technological progress and the elemental connection to the earth.

In the tradition of Arte Povera and German post-war material artists such as Joseph Beuys, Pierick develops his own material language that explores the tension between nature and culture, between geological time and human history. The haptic quality of the surface invites multi-sensory perception and thus overcomes the traditional distance between viewer and work of art.