Antje Wachs Gallery is pleased to present Heike Klussmann with a solo exhibition. For several years, Heike Klussmann has been dealing with the modification of the Alexanderplatz in Berlin, particularly with the dismantling and conversion of the central buildings of the eastern centre of Berlin: “Haus des Lehrers” (House of the teacher), Kaufhof, built as “Centrum Warenhaus” (Central department store) and Park Inn (built as “Hotel Stadt Berlin”). Exemplarily, the modification of the Kaufhof, which started one year before, as well as the dismantling of the aluminium façade by the architect Josef Kaiser are in the centre of the exhibition.

Heike Klussmann links and comments the actual incidences by using different media such as film, photography, sculpture, drawing and architecture. They become works with a documentary, fictive and mimetic content, which as an entire installation develop a tight netting of interrelations. The artist broaches the issue of a reconstructed history that is not present anymore. By doing so, she explores the process of “coring” and the remaining of a mantel.

Thus, the images of the work “Kaufhof Reverse” become the protagonists of a film. Heike Klussmann constructs the view of the building at its surrounding. 3927 single images, which were recorded from inside towards outside through every hole of the front, are reassembled to four sides of the façade. In the film of the same title, these individual images become a fictive camera-run through the rows of the façade which appears to be a scanning of the four outlooks. By a digital dissolving of the front, the animation “Digistrip” (3 min) makes the Kaufhof appear “naked” and creates a red cube at the Alexanderplatz which was never shown in the real course of dismantling. The equivalent to this, “Realstrip” (11 hours) shows the real deconstruction of the front in a constant section of images. In two film works, the artist herself appears and refers to her role. The super 8 animation film “Kaufhof von der Rolle” shows Heike Klussmann in the studio with the watering can during the assumed process of assembly, which emerges, however, by looking closer, as the reverse process of disassembly. After all, during the official auction of the combs at the Alexanderplatz in spring 2005, she mingles in the public and stages the actually proceeding event.