Klaus Weber: Thinking Fountains

This outdoor installation by Klaus Weber animates the brutalist architecture of the Hayward Gallery, creating a sense of passage for both passers-by and visitors.

The work also embodies Weber’s hopes for what an art gallery can offer: the chance to ‘widen our viewpoint, sharpen our senses and make new connections in our brains’.

Peacock, one of the two bronze sculptures, is a hybrid human whose hips emit an exuberant jet of water, suggesting a magnificent white bird fanning its plumage.

At intervals, the cascade of water deluges the sculpture, extinguishing its plumes and marking a tension between what the artist calls ‘gravity and levity’.

Thinking Fountain, the second bronze figure, assumes a pose of contemplation. A fountain of water surges upwards from its neck to suggest the shape of a head, before falling down its bronze body.

Flowing water is an ancient metaphor for human consciousness, still evident in contemporary language when we speak of streams of consciousness or floods of emotion.

Klaus Weber was born in 1967, Sigmaringen, Germany. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Thinking Fountains is generously supported by the Hayward Gallery Commissioning Committee and HENI, with additional support from the Rothschild Foundation. Commission made possible with Art Fund support.