Strong Girls

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In the existing exhibition situation, a proportional analogy is recognized between a concrete beam on the room’s ceiling and the so‑called Kore Hall on the Athenian Acropolis. This is visualized in photomontages. The roof beam of the Erechtheion’s porch is supported by six caryatids.

The aspect of strength embodied by these girl figures is translated in the site‑specific installation into a raw steel support taken from a construction site. In the configuration that has been realized, the base—usually the most stable element of a sculpture—paradoxically becomes the weakest point and thus the predetermined breaking point of the arrangement: the wooden substructure could simply be crushed by the multi‑ton force exerted by the steel support. The tightening process was stopped at the first crackling sounds of fractures within the wooden structure. The sculptural work remains in a literally tension‑laden, unstable state, poised just short of the breaking point.