Hans-Peter Feldmann

The large sculpture The Walking Man (The Traveller) consists of a freestanding wooden figure, approximately three meters high and three meters wide. It is composed of individually sawn wooden parts connected with joints, and in its formal reduction it recalls an oversized silhouette cutout or a simple mechanical toy.

The silhouette outlines a human figure, which is kept in constant motion by a system of gears and joints. This creates the impression that the figure is endlessly on a journey. With its clear contours and flat shape, the appearance also evokes an oversized comic figure—such as Tintin from The Adventures of Tintin, himself regarded as a restless traveler.

The work was first shown in 2010 in Düsseldorf, in a four-by-four meter vitrine in front of the construction site of the Louis Vuitton store. Over a period of 150 days, the background changed continuously, so that The Traveller symbolically journeyed around the world, stopping in five metropolises: Paris, New York, Shanghai, Mumbai, and Düsseldorf. This presentation was documented by two young photographers from Christopher Williams’ class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

The piece refers to Feldmann’s lifelong engagement with the theme of travel—both as an artistic subject and as a personal experience. From an early age, he traveled extensively: by ship across oceans and rivers, and frequently by plane. For him, traveling meant curiosity about the unfamiliar, the exotic, and new cultures. The theme also appears in other works: photographs from hotel rooms and hotel beds, the open Diercke Atlas turned to the page on South America, youth books on travel, or anonymous photographs of travelers in Italy and in the mountains.

—Hans-Peter Feldmann, The Walking Man (The Traveller)