Infinite Column

“Infinite Column After Constantin Brancusi (soft version, german style)” was commissioned by the Amore Pacific corporation which is a leading cosmetic company in Korea. I was asked to create a work with used and empty cosmetics containers, which were essentially trash. I decided to wrap the containers with a red adhesive foil and created a long tail that looks like a meter-long sausage. The sausage is randomly distributed on the floor. Due to its immense length, it occupies a large portion of the exhibition space and gets in conflict with installations of other artists in the space. However, the curators, artists and exhibition visitors are all permitted to touch the work and change its form or push it away if it gets too close. That means the art work is in flux during the exhibition period and the artist gave up control over the final appearance of the piece. The piece is annoying, complicated, but also playful and funny at the same time. The adhesive foil is slightly transparent, so if you look closely you can identify the product and understand that there are used cosmetic containers inside. The containers are left overs and can not be used anymore for its original purpose. I picked up on this idea of the leftover in a humorous way by stuffing it all into a sausage. Because this is what a sausage essentially is: Stuffed leftovers from the slaughter process and meat production. The two ends of the sausage are connected with each other, so the shape has no beginning and no end anymore, which reminds us of the infinite life cycle of trash. Trash never disappears. Either nature or technology is recycling or changing trash into another form. But it persists even in an invisible way, which may be hazardous and polluting. The idea of the “Infinite” is also a reason, why Fleischmann refers in the title of the work to the “Infinite Column” from Constantin Brancusi. The “Infinite” is a concept that is impossible to grasp for the human mind. Art can be a way to at least remind us of the limitations of our imagination and this is relevant, if we think how to deal with endless problems with trash in consumer societies.