The Call of Identity
The Call of Identity is a compelling glass sculpture by Klaus Wiechenthaler, created in collaboration with Helena Bednorz’s expressive figurative charcoal drawing and Peter Wiechenthaler’s masterful hand-worked glass.
Housed within a substantial square frame with a distinctive green-tinted glass border, the work presents a powerful, fragmented portrait. Multiple layers of ribbed, transparent glass are stacked over the charcoal drawing, creating a rhythmic horizontal striation across the face. The viewer is drawn into an intense gaze — eyes that seem to emerge and recede, a nose and mouth partially revealed through the optical interference of the glass. Subtle traces of red pigment bleed through the layers, adding emotional intensity and depth.
As the viewer shifts position, the portrait transforms. The glass slats act as both a veil and a lens — at once concealing and revealing, distorting and clarifying. What appears as a unified face from one angle fractures into abstract lines and shifting features from another. The work captures the tension between recognition and elusiveness, inviting the viewer to actively engage in the construction of identity.
The Call of Identity explores the fragile, fluid nature of selfhood and perception. The glass does not merely protect the image but becomes an integral part of it — a dynamic medium that mirrors how identity is never fixed, but constantly reshaped by perspective, memory, and time. The portrait calls out to the viewer, yet remains just beyond complete grasp, embodying the perpetual search for understanding oneself and others.
Poetic and hypnotic, this piece exists in the space between drawing and sculpture, presence and illusion, demanding the viewer’s movement and attention to fully come alive.
