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Public Art

Sphaera

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Stephan Balkenhol Sphaera golden sphere sculpture with figure on top covered in snow on Kapitelplatz Salzburg
Sphaera golden ball sculpture in front of Salzburg Cathedral towers on Kapitelplatz in Salzburg
Man atop Sphaera golden ball sculpture beside Salzburg Cathedral tower in Salzburg old town
Figure standing on Sphaera sculpture with Salzburg Cathedral clock tower in Salzburg
The Sphaera sculpture figure stands atop a golden ball with Hohensalzburg Fortress above in Salzburg.
Sphaera golden ball sculpture with figure atop below Hohensalzburg fortress in Salzburg
Close view of Sphaera sculpture figure on golden ball against blue sky in Salzburg old town

Snapshot

Sphaera is a monumental golden sphere five metres in diameter on Kapitelplatz, by German sculptor Stephan Balkenhol, installed in 2007 as the fifth project of the Salzburg Foundation’s Walk of Modern Art. A 1.4-metre bronze figure of an ordinary man in plain clothes stands on top, looking out across the square.

The Story

The sphere sits in one of the most visually saturated corners of Salzburg: the flat expanse of Kapitelplatz with Salzburg Cathedral on one side and Hohensalzburg Fortress rising on the other. The choice to place something conspicuously modern, conspicuously gold, and conspicuously large in that space was deliberate.

Stephan Balkenhol has made a career of the anonymous figure. Born in 1957 in Fritzlar, Germany, he studied in Hamburg and developed a sculptural language built around ordinary people carved from single blocks of wood or cast in bronze. No dramatic poses, no symbolic attributes, no identifiable persons. His figures are generic to the point of discomfort: the viewer projects onto them rather than reading from them.

The figure on Sphaera is consistent with that logic. He wears an unremarkable shirt and trousers. He looks outward. He occupies the summit of a golden sphere nine metres off the ground in a square where chess players sit below and tourists photograph the Cathedral every day. The scale makes the everydayness strange.

The installation drew public criticism when it appeared, with some Salzburgers arguing it overwhelmed the historic character of Kapitelplatz. That reaction was not unusual for the Walk of Modern Art project, which has consistently introduced work designed to create friction with its baroque surroundings rather than blend into them.

Frau im Fels, Balkenhol’s companion piece embedded in the rock face of the Toscaninihof, is a two-minute walk away and worth finding.

Visiting

Kapitelplatz, directly beside Salzburg Cathedral, in the centre of the Altstadt. Always accessible, always free. No booking required. Find the companion piece Frau im Fels in the Toscaninihof nearby.

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Beyond Recall illuminated artwork by Brigitte Kowanz on the Salzach embankment in Salzburg, part of the Walk of Modern Artwalk

Walk of Modern Art

The Walk of Modern Art is a self-guided trail of 17 permanent public sculptures installed across Salzburg by the Salzburg Foundation since 2002.

Salzburg15 stops

People

People connected to this place

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  • Frau im Fels sculpture by Stephan Balkenhol set into a rock niche on the Festungsberg in Salzburg, paired companion to the Sphaera on Kapitelplatz

    Stephan Balkenhol

    sculptorb. 1957

    German sculptor who created two permanent Walk of Modern Art works in Salzburg: Sphaera on Kapitelplatz (a man standing on a golden sphere) and Frau im Fels in the Toscaninihof (a woman half-emerging from stone).