A large number of guests attentively followed the conversation between Silvia and René Küng and Emil Angehrn, emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Basel. Almost 70 years of creativity and not a bit tired: René Küng is showing his sculptures “Between Moon and Sun” in the Ebenrain Castle Park in Sissach until August 17, 2025. Information can be found here.
Küng's sculptural work in wood, metal and stone deals with elements, systems of order and moods of nature, which, by means of a formal vocabulary of natural symbols, archetypal signs and metaphors of human culture such as wheel, window, staircase, ladder, gate or book, which he has retained for years, lead him to archaic-looking works. A subtle approach that takes into account the natural properties of the material, with deliberately simple tools, characterizes his early wooden sculptures, in which branches or slender trunks are left largely in their natural and joined together to form delicate, graceful moon ladders, forest harps, sun wheels and stairways to heaven, or humorously whimsical animal figures such as grasshoppers. The motif of movement that connects these works culminates in the much-acclaimed group of works Canti a più voci, created from 1989 onwards, with its stair-like hewn wooden logs, playfully suggesting the power and direction of the wind.
Silvan Faessler: “René Küng”, in: SIKART Lexikon zur Kunst in der Schweiz, 2016 (first published in 1998).