Florian Claar (b. 1968) was born in Germany and studied sculpture and stage design at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart. He currently resides in Japan and Germany. Claar launched a career in new media, installation art and film art after he went to Tokyo in 1994, and was awarded the 1st Prize of the Kajima Sculpture Competition (1998) and the 1st Prize of the Benesse Sculpture Competition. With a transdisciplinary practice engaging art, stage design and film, Florian Claar's work impresses his audience with its dramatic tension as it foregrounds and makes prominent the space, landscape and architecture in its narrative, blending technological refinement and an application of fluid aesthetics. Upon seeing Claar's work, the audience will not find a recognizable, fixed shape but rather the state of a form among its countless possible changes, with openings that allow people to peek into the work and structural frames and bolts that are kept on purpose. The indefinite relation between the work's interiority and exteriority contradicts traditional understanding of sculpture. Aluminum and stainless steel are materials often used by the artist. When unyielding steel and metal encounter Claar's flowing, soft rhythmic rendering, the result is an intense visual conflict and contrast. The artist draws his inspiration from sci-fi fictions, which he amalgamates with imageries reflecting the zeitgeist and urban landscape, imbuing his work with futuristic qualities as well as a sense of solitude.
