Jan Svenungsson

voxxx exhibition "Separationsspiel" – Backstory



Invited by curator Kathrin Becker to make one instalment in an exhibition series called "condominium" for the special space (with very large church-like windows) at alternative art center voxxx; JS decided to make an in-situ installation combined with a music piece called National Song, which was composed for the occasion (even though it was to be used first in an exhibition in Stockholm one month earlier).

The installation was based on Chemnitz' (in GDR times called Karl-Marx-Stadt) most famous public sculpture, a giant head of Karl Marx in the center of the city. A black and white line-drawing of this sculpture was copied and fixed to the first pane of glass in the large grid of each window (four in total). Then this drawing was copied on the next pane, then the copy was copied, etc, all according to the Psycho-Mapping method. On the first window Cyan color was used, then on the next Magenta, then Yellow, then Black - according to the principles of four color separation in CMYK.

Finally, the last image of each window was photographed and scanned and put together with the others in the computer in order to form a CMYK composite portrait of Karl Marx. This image was divided into a grid of its own and printed out in ink-jet on 66 A4 papers and installed on the wall.

During the time of the exhibition National Song was played continously on low volume.