To the unknown Broker / Tomb of the Unknown Broker ( Dem unbekannten Broker )
a monument about artistic vision as social comment
The installation (Tomb of an Unknown Broker) is dedicated to the virtual character of an Unidentified Broker. It highlights globalisation and worldtrade as a kind of warfare that affects each single individual in any corner of the world. The abstract values created or destroyed at high-speed, real time stock-markets are invisibly determing conditions of life or, even stronger, of the entire planet. Like a tomb or a monument it is not the artistic attitude of it' s creator that is at the forefront, but rather the overall memorial task letting the viewer forget about the individual artist as creator, disappearing behind the installation' s multiple layers.
In this landmarking project the contemporary topic of the unknown brokers connects locations, situations and virtual marketplaces within a geografical, situative and social context. The indispensable phenomenas of screens and interfaces are frozen into abstract rectangles, some of them flashing and flaring gold-plated, while others are absorbed in a dull blackness or imploding leaden surfaces. The figurative messages of the installation's single pieces are overlayered by an ornamental cornice. The ornament cross-fades the figurative pictures into a superordinated, yet levelling context; like the individual becomes a depersonalised modul within a globalised, cross-linked world. Due to their simultaneous appearance figurative contents and abstraction are running into a vexing game. The task of the monument becomes unreadable and thus blur into infinity. This effect is generated by seemingly offering little readable bits, but the sheer amount of those bits, exponentiated by the vertical dimension of the installation (ca. 25 – 30 m) will make it impossible to gain view of each sheet, thus melting them into a total, individable artistic expression, which again reflects the limited, bit-like impacts of individual fate in this hidden warfare. The installation projects the invisible hierarchies of social-economic powers onto the historic phrase of a column, a sub-babylonic obelisk. To distinguish the artpiece from the command centres and battlefields of world trade, it should be placed in a void landscape, so it doesn´t become levelled and deemphasized by their urban stages. Without any relating surrounding objects the installation does only tell about itself. The non-sense of the location reflects the absurdity of the devastating impacts and rules of world-economics. Isolated from the crowded City it cannot be misunderstood as public decoration.
Facing hundreds of recognizable one-sheet “short stories” within his immediate focus the spectator begins to realize that he can only grasp a fraction of all displayed motives. It is their almost infinite amount outside his very view that leaves the „whole story“ to his imagination whilst knowing, that an overall context is obvious, but he / she as single individual just cannot overlook, understand and put together it´s single elements.
The technique of engraving the motives into laquered metal sheets l(20 x 30 cm approx.) and exposing them to weather conditions produces corroding linear drawings, adding a sense of decay and finite time to the apparently victorious attitude of a column. The golden ornament of the guilded screens become counterbalanced by the engraved and therefore corroding drawings.
The Tomb of the Unknown Broker has been realised as a 27 m long, 847- piece wall installation in Zuerich and Berlin Art Forum Fair program. Yet I think that the vertical stretching (25 - 30 m) of the installation would enhance it's unreadability and thus strenghten the artistic expression. Though it might be just as impossible to find conditions under which the Tomb of the Unknown Broker can be realized it remains my numer one unrealized project. I hope that one day I can make it possible.
© Andreas Kopp for Argency of Unrealized Projects, October 2012 andreas-kopp@email.de
To the unknown Broker / Tomb of the Unknown Broker ( Dem unbekannten Broker )
a monument about artistic vision as social comment
The installation (Tomb of an Unknown Broker) is dedicated to the virtual character of an Unidentified Broker. It highlights globalisation and worldtrade as a kind of warfare that affects each single individual in any corner of the world. The abstract values created or destroyed at high-speed, real time stock-markets are invisibly determing conditions of life or, even stronger, of the entire planet. Like a tomb or a monument it is not the artistic attitude of it' s creator that is at the forefront, but rather the overall memorial task letting the viewer forget about the individual artist as creator, disappearing behind the installation' s multiple layers.
In this landmarking project the contemporary topic of the unknown brokers connects locations, situations and virtual marketplaces within a geografical, situative and social context. The indispensable phenomenas of screens and interfaces are frozen into abstract rectangles, some of them flashing and flaring gold-plated, while others are absorbed in a dull blackness or imploding leaden surfaces. The figurative messages of the installation's single pieces are overlayered by an ornamental cornice. The ornament cross-fades the figurative pictures into a superordinated, yet levelling context; like the individual becomes a depersonalised modul within a globalised, cross-linked world. Due to their simultaneous appearance figurative contents and abstraction are running into a vexing game. The task of the monument becomes unreadable and thus blur into infinity. This effect is generated by seemingly offering little readable bits, but the sheer amount of those bits, exponentiated by the vertical dimension of the installation (ca. 25 – 30 m) will make it impossible to gain view of each sheet, thus melting them into a total, individable artistic expression, which again reflects the limited, bit-like impacts of individual fate in this hidden warfare. The installation projects the invisible hierarchies of social-economic powers onto the historic phrase of a column, a sub-babylonic obelisk. To distinguish the artpiece from the command centres and battlefields of world trade, it should be placed in a void landscape, so it doesn´t become levelled and deemphasized by their urban stages. Without any relating surrounding objects the installation does only tell about itself. The non-sense of the location reflects the absurdity of the devastating impacts and rules of world-economics. Isolated from the crowded City it cannot be misunderstood as public decoration.
Facing hundreds of recognizable one-sheet “short stories” within his immediate focus the spectator begins to realize that he can only grasp a fraction of all displayed motives. It is their almost infinite amount outside his very view that leaves the „whole story“ to his imagination whilst knowing, that an overall context is obvious, but he / she as single individual just cannot overlook, understand and put together it´s single elements.
The technique of engraving the motives into laquered metal sheets l(20 x 30 cm approx.) and exposing them to weather conditions produces corroding linear drawings, adding a sense of decay and finite time to the apparently victorious attitude of a column. The golden ornament of the guilded screens become counterbalanced by the engraved and therefore corroding drawings.
The Tomb of the Unknown Broker has been realised as a 27 m long, 847- piece wall installation in Zuerich and Berlin Art Forum Fair program. Yet I think that the vertical stretching (25 - 30 m) of the installation would enhance it's unreadability and thus strenghten the artistic expression. Though it might be just as impossible to find conditions under which the Tomb of the Unknown Broker can be realized it remains my numer one unrealized project. I hope that one day I can make it possible.
© Andreas Kopp for Argency of Unrealized Projects, October 2012 andreas-kopp@email.de