Personal Odradek
1997
Sculpture, variable dimensions .
Materials: metal wire, photo collages
Collection: Collectie M HKA, Antwerp.
Odradek is a tiny fictitious creature from Franz Kafka’s short story, Die Sorge des Hausvaters. Resembling a bobbin, it lives in the basements of the neighbourhood's residents. The Odradek does nothing, is barely alive and has absolutely no purpose in life. Nevertheless, the narrator laments, while the Odradek appears to be inferior to humankind, he will outlast them. Koen Theys has applied this principle to both his work and life. There is a structure, a tangle of iron wire from which images of all his works between 1987 and 1997 hang. The work is displayed supine. The shape of the structure is altered each time it is moved, yet the coherence of the piece remains intact. It is a fluid work of art that is a hat tip to itself.
