Projects > Object Impermanence

Object Impermanence II (Ishtar Gate of Babylon)
Object Impermanence II (Ishtar Gate of Babylon)
drawings on acrylic, gouache, ice, videocamera, MDF, live stream video
dimensions variable
2018

Object Impermanence is an ongoing site specific installation. When this installation is shown, a new painted tile is placed on the stand with ice on top at the beginning of each day for the duration of the exhibition. These hand painted acrylic tiles directly references tiles from an important site specific to the location of the exhibition . As the ice melts, water alters or washes away part of the painting. The tray below collects the water and the runoff from each event. A videocamera, installed above the stand displaying the painted tile and ice, records and projects a live feed of the action directly onto the exhibition space's floor at a scale approximately the size of the original site’s floor. Afterwards each tile is displayed on the wall with it’s predecessors. For this project's exhibition location Berlin, Germany, the tiles reference the reconstructed Ishtar Gate of Babylon (originally built in present-day Iraq) now in the permanent collection of Berlin’s Pergamon museum.