Two Heads
Günter Grass
Description
These two heads, for which preparatory charcoal studies exist, were created at the same time as »Man in the Moon«. Like the other bronze sculptures, they are first shaped in terra-cotta and then cast in bronze.
What is remarkable about the heads is that they are not three-dimensional, but rather formed as flat lying sculptures and thus appear to be reliefs. The resulting accentuation of the profile lines and the drawings within indicate that these works were created by an illustrator and graphic artist. The facial features are sparsely defined and provide little individuality. With their graphic appearance, the stereotyping and their fragmentary character, the heads seem to be relics of an archaic culture. Grass deploys a design language here which he already developed as a student and which was used for the cover of From the Diary of a Snail (1972) to give a profile view of a linearly construed face.