b. 1970, Germany
Means of guidance, supervision and control have become an ever increasingly intrusive aspect of our everyday life. Under the pretence of "Health and Safety" an absurd amount of rails, signage and balustrades crowd the public space that we occupy. By employing either recycled materials or old fashioned manufacturing process, the artist's works evoke a sense of the familiar. Supposedly formal in their appearance, each work harbours a subversive meaning, which elevates the object from its benign purpose to a sculpture of exceptional beauty and conceptual function. It comes as no surprise then that Vanessa Henn has regularly re-explored the public space. Over the past decade a series of large scale interventions such as 'Drop' - a blown up sculpture in the shape of a discarded chewing gum currently installed in Heidenheim, Germany or 'Kompass' a public signage sculpture in Villingen-Schwenningen to name a few - have become a central aspect of Henn's practice.