"I try to give my pictures a smooth surface, and I want them to look as if they were not made by the hand of a human being. I coat my passions with ice to give them greater permanence." (K. Klapheck, quoted from Konrad Klapheck, ex. cat. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam 1974, p. 36.) Thus, it is solely the drawings by Klapheck that allow a glimpse of the spontaneity and immediacy of the quest toward the painterly realization of these human passions. Despite their high degree of graphic perfection, they are the only documents that still bear the artistic signature, which is entirely concealed in Klapheck's "super-representational" paintings. What makes Klapheck's work so fascinating is the unique objectivity of the depiction in combination with alienating elements and titles that often evoke associations with human emotions, causing the viewer's perception to oscillate between closeness and distance. Unlike Pop Art pieces, Klapheck's works are not reduced to their pure object nature, their industrial serial character; instead, Klapheck creates distinctive character objects that provoke a broad range of associations and emotions and thus become symbols of our human existence. Like an umbilical cord, the hose in Klapheck's “Lamento” winds its way through the boundaries of a fire extinguisher's box; made in the year of his mother's death, it becomes a modern symbol of our lives. [JS]