Cardboard Gorilla

With this large-format cardboard sculpture, Jen Weissenbacher ventures a sculptural excursion into a radically different material – far from color, far from painting, but right at the center of her artistic theme: the confrontation with the other, the animalistic relative, the mirror being.

 

Here, the gorilla appears not in vibrant layers of color, but in the raw, unvarnished structure of cardboard – a material of everyday life, transience, and consumption. Countless precisely cut and layered cardboard strips create a three-dimensional face that appears both monumental and fragile.

 

The fine segmentation of the surface – especially in the forehead and fur area – creates an intense rhythm reminiscent of archaic masks. However, instead of mythical exaggeration, the focus here is on the material itself, raising questions of value, vulnerability, and presence.

 

The choice of medium lends the work a new level of readability: The noble dignity of the animal meets a disposable material – and yet the result is an object of great concentration and dignity. Weissenbacher transforms the everyday into something symbolic.

 

This sculpture is not only a cross-media experiment, but a manifesto: for the power of form, for expression beyond material – and for the enduring presence of the non-human at the center of our perception.