Tobias Ballaty
For more than three years, the block was searched for and uncovered in the Naxos quarry. In 2026, it was worked into a transportable blank. LYRA is a work of art that is unique in its scale and form.
LYRA connects the present with the millennia-old history of sculpture on Naxos. Since antiquity, the island's white marble has been used for sculpture and architecture far beyond Naxos. With LYRA, Tobias Ballaty brings this ancient material into a contemporary form that reaches beyond the present.
37° 3′ N, 25° 28′
The Process
FROM BLOCK TO SCULPTURE
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37° 3′ N, 25° 28′
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The rough shape
After the block was uncovered, the sculptural work began directly on the marble. LYRA was drawn onto the stone itself. Over several months, marking, milling and cutting alternated with work using the wire saw.
As the work progressed, Ballaty's assessment of the material was confirmed. Only minor adjustments to the original form were necessary. From an original block weighing around 2,000 tonnes, the transportable LYRA blank emerged.
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The first day of shaping the marble block begins, as the milling machine starts transforming raw stone into its intended form.
For millions of years, the block lay hidden in complete darkness, deep within the mountain. Now, it came to light, still connected to the rock from which it emerged, and was awakened to new life. Like a separation, it is cut horizontally from the mountain.
LYRA connects the present with the millennia-old history of sculpture on Naxos. Since antiquity, the island’s white marble has been used far beyond Naxos for sculptures and architecture. With LYRA, Tobias Ballaty establishes a contemporary measure that reaches beyond the present.
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The final cut
THE ARTIST
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Tobias Ballaty
Born in Munich in 1989 to Austrian parents, Tobias Ballaty lives and works in Arlesheim near Basel, Switzerland. While studying art, he travelled to Naxos to acquire his first block of Naxos marble. Since then, the material has accompanied him throughout his artistic work.
Double curved surfaces, the organic shaping of the material, and the ideas of polarity, intensification and metamorphosis are central themes in his work. His longstanding work with monumental sculpture and his distinctive formal language come together in LYRA.
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37° 3′ N, 25° 28′
THE METAMORPHOSIS
Viewed from a temporal perspective, the phenomenon reveals itself as the flow of a double spiral, as it is archetypically represented in the Greek lyra. From the centre, the form develops through two opposing movements.
"The double curved surface itself continues to intensify as it moves in opposite directions. Whoever can hear this form can hear, in it, the archetypal intervals of music."
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The Final Cut. A wire saw separates Lyra from its marble base
FROM NAXOS TO BASEL
For a long time, it remained uncertain whether the transport of LYRA could be approved at all. The extraordinary dimensions of the work require a project-specific solution for every stage of the journey.
Ballaty developed key approaches for the transport itself and incorporated them into the further planning. Greek, German, Austrian and Swiss specialists are working together with the artist to develop the technical plans and bring them into reality.
THE QUARRY
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Lyra has left
The LYRA sculpture was carved from a block of high-crystalline Naxian marble at a privately owned family quarry in Kinidaros — a family business with over 40 years of experience in the heart of Naxos. Their expertise and support made the extraction and transport of this extraordinary single block possible.
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Lyra project taking shape in the naxos marble quarry
The creation and journey of LYRA is being documented by director Christoffer Borggren and cinematographer Jakob Neuhauser. Over the course of more than five years, the two filmmakers have followed artist Tobias Ballaty from the quarry floor in Naxos through every stage of the work: the carving, the decisions, the setbacks, and the extraordinary undertaking of transporting a marble sculpture across land and sea.
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37° 3′ N, 25° 28′
– Tobias Ballaty
