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What do you want to know: The new sculpture by British artist David Breuer-Weil, Soho reflection (2023), has been permanently installed on Dean Street in London’s Soho district. Commissioned by Westminster Council and located at the intersection of Dean Street and Oxford Street, the work features two life-size textured bronze figures joined by their feet, mimicking a reflection. The website of Soho reflection is a creative hub of the neighborhood and the city, and the newly placed work highlights the continued importance and relevance of the art, music and film scenes.

Installation is in line with the work of Breuer-Weil Sister (2023) which was installed in London Hannover Square from February to July 2023. In Sister, the artist’s engagement with reflective themes and elements was made literal by using polished stainless steel, which mirrored the environment around the sculpture. The artist has also recently had installations in Portman Square and Kings Cross and is a counterpart to the permanent installation of Emergence II at Canary Wharf.

David Breuer-Weil, Sister (2023). Courtesy of Galerie B. Weil, London.

Why we love it: Reflection, both as a phenomenon and as a theme, is a powerful artistic starting point, loaded with visual and metaphorical possibilities. In Soho reflection, Breuer-Weil exploits the diverse implications of reflection, achieving interpretable and profound ends through artistic means. Materially, the sculpture is positioned close to the many glass windows of Dean Street, which reflect the sculpture and its context – like the sky – which is constantly in motion with passers-by and the changing weather. Extending this literal reflection is the positioning of the two characters in the work, inverse to each other, creating the sense of another dimension. It is an exciting addition to the venue, which is an important bastion of the city’s creative energy, and to the artist’s ongoing series of bronze works that play with the idea of ​​reflection. The work of Breuer-Weil Visitor ifor example, featured in “Beyond Limits” in 2010 by Sotheby’s at Chatsworth House, featured a bronze sculpture of a head in water, the reflection creating the illusion of an inverted whole. Soho reflection is a permanent testament to the artist’s inimitable vision and support for Soho’s historic and important art community.

David Breur-Weil, Visitor i (2010). Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

According to the Artist: “I am very committed to the subject of reflection and at the same time I have made a series of paintings on the subject because it is a great challenge to paint a reflected image because it does not exist. Living beings are reflected in their eyes and minds. Visual reflections are usually an illusion of light, but in this bronze for Soho I have made the reflection literally three-dimensional. It is a very simple idea, one figure standing and the other upside down, the illusion becomes physical. However, it features highly intricate detailed surfaces: raw, broken window panes cast in bronze with graffiti and pictographs.The sculpture is deliberately installed near a large pane of glass where it is reflected with the sky above and the buildings of Dean Street.

Sister also deals with reflection but in a deliberately antithetical way to my Soho reflection, and in this respect the two works are intertwined as opposites: using smooth polished steel I have cut out an egg-shaped female form and viewers see multi-faceted reflections of the face, hands, limbs and hair, in this case suggesting a lighter fourth dimension beyond the physical, something spiritual in essence, otherworldly, perhaps inspired by the idea I learned in childhood that humanity is part animal, in angelic part. With Sister I planned the shadows and reflections that would appear carefully, for example when the sun is shining, a very solid shadow of a human face becomes clear, emphasizing the figurative elements of the work, and when this happens it looks like the solidity of the lower “reflected” figure in the Soho reflection. The human head at the top of the egg is also reflected in miniature at the base of the egg inside. I explored these ideas further in a series of tiny models that seek to extend the sculptural language to more dimensions. What connects all of these works is the sculptor’s process of thinking about weight and weightlessness, physicality and illusion, figurative and abstract, and reflection as a metaphor for thought.

David Breuer-Weil, Soho reflection (2023). Courtesy of Galerie B. Weil, London.

Learn more about David Breuer-Weil here.

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