Artistic research project on body, shame and autonomy · Adults only · No explicit content

Artistic research project on body, shame and autonomy · Adults only · No explicit content

About me / Biography

Achim Mentzen

Entrepreneur. Sales and marketing professional. Lecturer. Professional driver. An artist working with his own body.

I am Achim Mentzen.

I have never reduced my working life to a single profession or a single identity. My path has taken me through international trade, logistics, technical sales, management, key account management, marketing, quality management, digital marketing and adult education.

Today I combine these experiences with a personal and artistic project that deliberately makes boundaries visible: the Transparency Project / Living Sculpture.

It is about the human body, nudity, shame, social norms and the question of why a living naked body is often more taboo in our society than violence, destruction or death.

My career

My career began with an apprenticeship as a freight forwarding clerk and first took me into international sea and project freight.

I worked in import and export, in international project business and in worldwide transport handling. Early on I gained experience with international customers, suppliers, projects and complex organisational processes.

Later my focus shifted increasingly towards marketing, sales and business development. I worked in international marketing and inside sales and looked after customers and field sales organisations in Europe and the USA.

Alongside my job I completed the training as a Certified marketing specialist (IHK).

Sales, leadership and entrepreneurship

For many years I worked in technical sales.

My tasks ranged from new customer acquisition and key account management to strategic sales planning and responsibility for revenue, budgets and staff.

I was sales manager, key account manager and authorised officer (Prokurist) and was responsible for sales organisations, employees, budgets, revenue planning and strategic market development.

My activities included:

International experience

For decades my professional work was internationally oriented.

I worked with customers, partners and sales organisations in various European countries and beyond.

International sales, import and export, technical products, international business relationships and building sales structures are all part of my professional experience.

I speak German as my mother tongue, have business-fluent English and basic Dutch.

Quality management

Another part of my professional development was Quality management.

I trained as a QM manager and QM auditor (TAW).

This added another perspective to sales and management: questioning processes, documenting structures, defining responsibilities and implementing improvements systematically.

This way of thinking also shapes my work today.

Digital marketing and new media

Among other things, I gained qualifications as:

On top of that comes practical experience with SEO and SEA, social media, content marketing, CRM, digital sales processes, websites, online communication and digital analytics tools.

Today I also use this knowledge to document my own project in public.

From a conventional career to Living Sculpture

My professional life is an important part of my work today.

I did not come from an art academy.

I come from business, sales, marketing, logistics, quality management and adult education.

That is exactly the perspective I bring to the Transparency Project.

Since 2026 I have been developing Living Sculpture as a public artistic and social project.

I am not just exhibiting an art object.

I myself become the naked subject of discussion, observation and debate.

My body becomes visible.

My biography becomes visible.

My decisions become visible.

And society's reactions to them also become part of the project.

The human body is not obscene

A central idea of my project is:

The human body is not obscene.

Nudity is first of all a physical state. Society gives it meaning.

Shame is not simply a natural property of the body. It is shaped, learned, reinforced and judged differently by different cultures.

I call this process shame conditioning.

The project therefore explores what happens when an adult consciously decides to stop hiding his own body according to other people's expectations.

Not secretly. Not by accident. Not as provocation for its own sake.

But deliberately, publicly and documented.

Radical transparency

Being radically transparent does not mean forcing anyone to do anything.

It means, first of all, making the decision about my own body myself.

I decide when, where and under what conditions I show myself in public.

Other people decide for themselves whether and how they deal with it.

This mutual freedom of decision is an essential part of the project.

Bodily self-determination does not mean self-determination over other people.

That is why consent, clear boundaries, age requirements, the legal framework and mutual respect are explicitly part of the project.

Living Sculpture

Living Sculpture literally means: a sculpture that lives.

The sculpture is not made of stone, metal or plastic.

It lives. It moves. It ages. It reacts. It is looked at.

And it looks back.

The human body is thus taken out of its usual private surroundings and placed in an artistic, social and societal context.

The decisive question is not:

“May a naked person exist?”

But:

“Why do we react so strongly to a naked human body in the first place?”

The public is part of the artwork

The project does not end with the presentation of my body.

The reactions to it are part of it.

Looks. Irritation. Rejection. Curiosity. Interest. Conversations. Laughter. Silence. Approval. Objection.

All of this can become part of the documentation.

Because the real subject of the inquiry is not only my body.

It is also our social reaction to this body.

My professional background remains part of my identity

I do not want to reinvent myself for this project.

I have not suddenly become someone else.

I bring my whole story with me:

It is precisely this combination that interests me.

An adult man with a decades-long professional biography consciously decides to make his own body an artistic and social subject.

That is not a contradiction.

It is part of the story.

From freight forwarding clerk to Living Sculpture

My professional development was never linear.

I have changed several times.

I have learned new professions.

I have taken on responsibility.

I have helped build and lead companies and sales organisations.

I have worked with marketing and digital media.

Later I took a completely new professional direction once more and trained as a professional driver.

Today I also pass on my knowledge as a lecturer in the continuing education of professional drivers.

This willingness to change is an important part of my personality.

I do not automatically accept that something “has always been done this way”.

I ask why.

Why this project?

Because I believe that many social rules have become so self-evident that we hardly think about them any more.

Why is a naked human body considered problematic?

Why is nudity so often sexualised?

Why is shame produced?

Why is the body of an adult something that has to be hidden?

And why can violence, war, death and destruction be visible in the media every day at the same time?

I do not want to discuss these contradictions only in theory.

I want to make them visible.

With my own body.

With my own decision.

With my own responsibility.

No anonymous art persona

I do not hide behind an artist's name.

I am Achim Mentzen.

My name is part of the project.

My biography is part of the project.

My decisions are part of the project.

And my body belongs to me.

This combination of identity, biography and physical visibility is a central part of Living Sculpture.

Transparency also means responsibility

For me, transparency does not mean having no limits.

It means defining limits consciously.

That is why my project explicitly includes:

Consent. Voluntariness. Respect. Age limits. Legal framework. Personal safety. Clear communication. Documentation. Responsibility.

My own freedom ends where the rights of others begin.

And other people's freedom does not end just because I consciously show myself in public.

What I want to achieve with Living Sculpture

I want to make people think.

Not necessarily to adopt my point of view.

But to examine their own ideas.

What do we consider normal?

What do we find offensive?

What have we learned?

Which reactions really belong to us?

And which were taught to us?

Living Sculpture is therefore not just the story of a naked body.

It is an exploration of perception, shame, freedom, self-determination and social norms.

I make myself visible.

Not because I have nothing to hide.

But because I consciously decide what I want to make visible.

That is the core of my Transparency Project.

I am Achim Mentzen.
This is my body.
This is my story.
And this is Living Sculpture.

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