2010 – 2016
Mehr Licht
Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, The German Bundestag, Berlin
Suspended in the courtyard of the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus building in Berlin, which contains the Parliamentary Library and Archives for the nearby Reichstag, Mehr Licht is a new addition to the collection of the Bundestag.
While jewels and decadent ornament would customarily adorn a chandelier, Mehr Licht is composed of a collection of distinct streetlights, each speaking to a particular civic aesthetic. The flat horizon has been folded and the streetlights, typically vertical, are variously tilted; a cityscape is collapsed and reassembled to create a satellite, suspended in space.
Projecting outward from a composite core—a polyhydron made of the agglomeration of different streetlight-bases—the long arms of the sculpture extend into a stellation, Mehr Licht is a tug of war between an inward tension, drawing strength toward the centre, and an energetic burst of rays, radiating outward.
The asymmetrical assemblage expand light in all directions, gesturing past of the walls of the courtyard and building, to various points throughout the city; they are refractions of Goethe’s last words, Mehr Licht (more light).
Kunst-am-Bau Wettbewerb für den Deutschen Bundestag, Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus / Thilo Folkerts, project architect, Berlin