At the heart of Stefan Rinck’s artistic practice there lies a double paradox that stems from the very form of his works. Heirs to a vast symbolic heritage, they appear to bear the promise of a ritualistic form of existence and destiny. Yet, the vitality of the artist’s oeuvre resides precisely in the tension engendered by the subversion of these expectations, opening up a space for reflection on the persistence of symbolic representations.

The array of characters draws on the mythology of guardian entities and zoomorphic deities traditionally associated with sacred edifices and which have existed throughout human culture. From Mesopotamia to ancient Egypt, Mesoamerica to Western Gothic cathedrals, religious architecture has almost always featured sculptures having specific functions on facades, on thresholds or inside the ceremonial spaces themselves. These representations each have particular roles: that of guardians (an apotropaic purpose intended to ward off evil), the depiction of deities, the statement of political power, the telling of a collective, historical narrative, or even as metaphors for virtues that should be aspired to.

Stefan Rinck evolves within this vast repertoire with an accomplished freedom. With its totems, monumental statues, ritualized elements of furniture, smaller guardian figures and caricatures of morality, his oeuvre encompasses most sculptural typologies. In one sense, Stefan Rinck operates in a “Warburgian” manner, composing what might be understood as an additional plate of the Mnemosyne Atlas, focused on the sculptural vocabulary of devotion. He thus constantly intermingles eras and styles, up to and including the most contemporary references to forms derived from non-religious devotion, such as Labubu figurines, dinosaur action-toys and video characters that occupy our screens as everyday icons. At first glance, these works, drawing on an immense sacred heritage, suggest that they may not only represent but also embody a relationship to the sacred.

This is where the first of the paradoxes arises. The sculptures to which Stefan Rinck’s work refers, are, in their original contextual settings, inextricably linked with religious sites. They exist in specific locations—in most cases a building—which provides them with their basic function. Their meaning is therefore assigned by the spaces they inhabit. Rinck’s sculptures however, are free from any spatial restriction; they do not, a priori, require a prescribed architectural context. Unlike the objects they are inspired by, they are even destined to occupy a number of spaces during their existence: the artist’s studio, galleries, museums, collector’s homes and gardens. Yet, within themselves they seem to harbor the memory of a threshold, a façade or a niche, without ever having been able to inhabit these spaces. The tension between his reference to deeply rooted forms and the manner in which he deliberately decontextualizes them is one of the key driving forces behind Stefan Rinck’s work. This is particularly apparent in the exhibition at Semiose, where the motif of the boat and the act of crossing clearly evoke the idea of passage.

Stefan Rinck’s stone figures form a motley and comical community of, for the most part, animals, chimeras and monsters. They wear costumes and masks; are endowed with particular symbols or characteristics, some bear the names of heroes of Greek mythology or of legend. Rinck’s sculpted figures make up a discordant but related assembly of non-humans: they come from elsewhere, an archaic imaginary world, woven from myths and legends. With his collection of fauna, the artist is using a technique typical of the Middle Ages: sculpting his figures directly from stone.

Rinck’s sculptures remind us of the figures of Roman art, which populate the columns and tympana of churches. These are grotesque figures, in which we recognize the vitalist comedy typical of medieval realism which could be observed during the parades of jesters and buffoons at religious and popular festivities. Yet if the Middle Ages seem to color Rinck’s art, its frame of reference in fact crystalizes around a number of “Gothic” obsessions of the Romantic kind: a taste for mythology and folk tales, for different epochs and cultures for the fantastic or figures of hubris and excess.

Stefan Rinck has had numerous solo exhibitions, most recently at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich and the Domaine de Chamarande (2025), as well as group exhibitions at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris and the MAC Marseille (2024). He has also exhibited at international fairs and biennials, including Art Basel Paris, the Artzuid Sculpture Biennial in Amsterdam (2025) and FIAC Hors les murs at the Tuileries (2019). One of his sculptures is on permanent display in Paris since 2018 (Beaupassage). In 2019, he was selected among 100 Sculptors of Tomorrow, published by Thames & Hudson.