"The artwork, situated outside of the Salzburg cathedral on the Kapitelplatz, is easily recognizable from afar thanks to its golden sheen that reflects light from the sun. The 9-meter-high sculpture depicts a male figure wearing a neutral expression on his face standing atop a golden sphere.
The man with the neutral expression on his face was constructed out of wood and bronzed. Balkenhol created the man as a figurative depiction of the everyday man.
Balkenhol has been creating works like these, featuring the everyday man and woman as his main subject, for years. His sculptures, typically constructed from wood acquired from the waa tree in Africa, glorify indistinguishable and ordinary individuals in society who are often assumed and ignored.
Style-wise, Balkenhol’s sculptures are typically cut roughly and tend to be unpolished. The artist accepts that cracks and defects are characteristic of the medium. These flaws, in unison with the realism and the neutral expressions on the sculptures, are what help to lend a sense of ambiguity to the end products. This, in turn, allows people to instantly connect with the everyday man or woman.
According to critics, Sphaera has a strong cultural significance for Germans as it represents the protagonist in the Austrian play Jedermann, which translates to Everyman. Jedermann is one of those plays that are performed repeatedly in festivals and theaters all over the country.
It is also a title of a play created by Austrian playwright Hugo von Hofmannsthal in 2011, which is based on the 15th-century morality play Everyman. Since 1920, it has been performed at the world-renowned Salzburg Festival every year, which was co-founded by von Hofmannsthal himself.
Audiences looking at Sphaera and all the other sculptures in the Everyman series can interpret the works as they please, which usually serves as its own type of therapy for the observer. The sculpture’s greatest strength is its indefiniteness, which allows anyone, even tourists who aren’t familiar with Jedermann and German culture in general, to understand and deduce the sculpture.
All in all, Balkenhol created Sphaera to demonstrate that the human figure is universal. Though people may have different physical attributes, human beings are instinctually connected by emotion and the need for community."
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