Stargate by Kerstin Brätsch
2013 – 2017
Kerstin BrätschFacts
- Material
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Glass, cast aluminium frame
- Size
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360 x 240 x 12 cm
- Description
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Kerstin Brätsch gave the skylight that is placed in the corridor connecting the Altbau and Swiss Re Next the title Stargate. And it really does feel like a portal to another world: futuristic hi-tech and mythical cult object from the past in equal measure – and thus, quite contemporary in a way.
- Location
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Zurich, Swiss Re Next
© 2014 Kerstin Brätsch
Image copyright: Stefan Altenburger
She breaks painting down into its constituent parts. Again and again, she puts her own works to the test, something she considers an essential part of her practice. She faces up to the crises of painting. Like the other window at the start of the passage, Stargate is based on one of Brätsch's series of Mylar Paintings. For each of these works, the artist arranges three transparent polyester sheets painted with oils in a row. This creates a three-layered picture that can be combined in various ways, asserting itself in the space at the same time as giving a free view of the background.
With the help of Zurich glass painter Urs Rickenbach, whose team also produced Sigmar Polke's Grossmünster Church windows, Brätsch has now translated her paintings into a different material – glass. When finally attached to the ceiling, the glass of the window seems to succumb to gravity, almost dripping out of its aluminium frame. As if it bore memories of other states within it. The nature of glass: solidified matter that was once liquid and that can become so again.