Coloured Room with Black and White Scene

Painted aluminum, books, tea, glass, painted chicken meat, formaldehyde, clothespins, glue, electric cable, lamp, iron / Figure size: 40 x 70 x 170 cm, installation size variable
Sammlung Goetz, Munich

MM: I used the phrase “Coloured Room with Black and White Scene” from Hallway with Sentences to make two different works. The first is a series of photographs of an overfilled, complexly condensed room. The second, by contrast, is less drastic. The central element is formed by a black-and-white still life that I had transposed into shades of gray, like a three-dimensional black-and-white photograph. In addition, this room contains a figure lying flat on its back; I combined as many stylistic characteristics as I could from as many cultures as possible—for example, Greek, Etruscan, Egyptian, African, Asian—to form a logical body. I placed several objects under the figure’s arm, raising it slightly. This both emphasizes the body’s immobility and instills it with life. Nearby is a lump of clay—the same material from which the figure was made—which has been violently clenched by a hand.