Bart LESCRÈVE - KOP 1 (Head 1) (2021)

During his two-year residency at Barak Lili M, Pilar’s artist studios, Lescrève created the monumental open-air sculpture KOP 1 from Belgian bluestone. The rough, unprocessed block of stone that arrived in his studio was patiently refined into a polished sculpture with undulating forms.  

The result: a grotesque head with deep eye sockets reminiscent of a skull. At the same time, the sculpture radiates a friendly familiarity. Before the artist began the intensive process of working the stone, he made several sketches and models in ceramics and plaster.  

In his work, Lescrève never creates the heads as realistic representations of the human face, but always as stylised versions. Thanks to the sensual design of the unwieldy stone - a graveyard of fossils weighing one and a half tonnes - Lescrève succeeded in giving the monumental sculpture a fragile character. KOP 1 not only represents an alienating point of contact between life force and death, but also positions itself between the human and the animal world.