Artwork of the month - video (56 sec).

The Shoulder and The Egg

Year	2025
Size	84 cm × 49 cm x 24 cm
Materials	Black clay with chamotte, various glazes & engobes
Edition	1/1
For Sale	Yes, contact our gallery Fred&Ferry (Antwerp, BE)
Share

FRANK & ROBBERT return for the third time to FRED&FERRY gallery in Antwerp, presenting a new body of works rooted in the Neolithic traditions of menhirs, dolmens, and symbolic stones. These works translate the collective subconscious with ancient forms and belief systems into a contemporary language, activated through ritual gestures and participatory performances. The traces and remnants of these interventions become integral to the artworks themselves.

The Shoulder and the Egg serves as the exhibition’s poster work and functions as a key to understanding the broader body of work. The piece originates from a recurring dream experienced by Frank. Through collective reflection in the studio and an attempt to recapture the dream’s emotional charge, the dream gradually transformed into a physical artwork.

At the heart of the dream is a central figure who removes a piece of their own shoulder and offers it to a demon-like being. Though initially frightening, the figure also appears benevolent. The demon’s elongated tongue holds a scale, poised to weigh the piece of flesh. At the moment of offering, the flesh transforms into an egg. The egg contains life, yet it has not hatched yet. Beneath this dream scene lies an abstract calendar, linking the hatching of the egg to the cycles of the moon and a specific moment in time.

The dream scene is engraved on the reverse side of a self-made black monolith. The front presents the face of the demon itself. Its eyes are hollowed into lavabo-like forms, capable of collecting (rain)water or other liquids.

The work unfolds as a metaphysical meditation on burden and responsibility. The act of offering part of one’s load to another suggests a transformation from the negative to the generative: the burden becomes a vessel for new life. The scale points toward the future, toward balance, acceptance, and the weighing of time. It speaks of transformation and release, of the eternal cycle between darkness and light, life and death. In this sense, the work operates alchemically, holding within it the tension and power of duality.

Installed in the gallery on metal legs and surrounded by yellow leaves, the monolith carries the promise of future activation in the public realm, in a forest, on a hill, or in another site close to nature. The holes on the sides of the sculpture invite participation and collective engagement. Through these gestures, the work moves beyond the world of Frank & Robbert and becomes a shared vessel, a carrier for the kindred.

- - - - - - - - - -