Galería Alegría, L'Hospitalet, Barcelona

Ken Sortais, Philipp Röcker

Galería Alegría proposes for Art-o-rama 2026 a duo presentation featuring large-scale sculptural works by Ken Sortais (France, 1983) and Philipp Röcker (Germany, 1984).
 
While the two artists’ practices stem from different approaches, their works present subtle similarities and complementary aspects that generate an interesting dialogue when exhibited together.
 
Ken Sortais’ sculptures originate from 1:1 latex casts of already existing subjects – whether mythological, fictional or industrial – which the artist later distorts through processes of inflation and manipulation. Forms once aligned with clear aesthetic or utilitarian canons are stripped of their original nature and transformed, into something new and unsettling. Although his sculptures appear solid and monumental, their structure largely depends on air hermetically sealed inside the latex skin, which the artist uses as an invisible sculptural force sustaining and giving shape to the work.
 
Philipp Röcker’s practice, by contrast, engages with materials molding them through gesture and bending them through an intense processual degree, dictated through the artist’s personal sensory experience. In his movements and physical modeling, his only guiding principles are his own sensory connection with the materials, the liberty of his creative force and the freedom of his movements. His sculptures often appear as compact plaster blocks, yet the artist deliberately leaves small openings through which the viewer can glimpse their interior. These apertures reveal the internal hollowness of the works and the unpredictable forms created as the material trapped inside dries and settles beyond the artist’s direct control.

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