Variationen von Kapital - indian ink on tibetan handmade paper, each 40x60cm - since 2013

 

»This piece is based on the simple idea of making as much capital as possible out of the word ‘capital’. This is roughly how I start my reply whenever I’m asked to explain this work in more detail. It’s actually a game I want to play with the viewer, the buyer and the seller – or in other words the market. It’s based on rules that everyone has to comply with. It starts with the production of the picture and continues with its presentation, pricing and finally sale. I asked a computer scientist to program a computer to generate all possible spellings of the word ‘capital’ so that the same word can still be read phonetically. Which of the over 41,000 possible spellings I, the artist, was to turn into pictures was ‘chosen’ by a random generator. Using Indian ink on handmade paper, the result was a series of pictures entitled ‘Variationen von Kapital’, each one dated and signed, each of them unique. All identically framed and hanged as a series, they’re displayed by the gallery and offered for sale for 1,000 each. This price is fixed – the gallery isn’t allowed to reduce or increase it. Moreover, the buyer isn’t allowed to choose the picture they want – it’s selected by a random generator, just like the pictures to be produced by the artist. All these rules examine forms of labour, commodity, production and the market. My interest lies in revealing and questioning the market’s established mechanisms and modes of operation.« 

 

Installation view Blain/Southern Berlin and at Oldenburger Kunstverein, Germany.