No Access: cluster one (B, D, E, I, M), 2015/2017 @museum.de

Tom Burr (born 1963 in New Haven, lives in New York and Connecticut) is among the most relevant contemporary conceptual artists. His work shows contextual links with urban aesthetics, gay subculture, minimal art and avant-garde film. For KölnSkulptur #8, Burr assembled 26 black screens in a defined cluster in an area about the size of a handball field. Their number is derived from the alphabet. After the end of KölnSkulptur #8 the screens with the letters B, D, E, I and M are staying under the name No Access: Cluster one at a new place in the park. The objects were developed especially for this site. Their fronts show highly polished, darkened mirrors. On the back an ”X” of painted steel statically supports the construction. With No Access, Tom Burr unmistakably points to the digital surfaces of today. This is why he called the original ensemble also a Cluster of 26 Dead iPhones. The painters of the 17th and 18th century were already using framed mirrors, so-called ”Claude glasses”, to select views for their landscape paintings. Burr blows them up to create simple, stereometric and haunting shapes. This results in puzzling mirror reflections and bizarre spatial experiences.

Tom Burr

No Access: cluster one (B, D, E, I, M), 2015/2017

Stainless steel, polished and blackened, alucobond, aluminium

Stiftung Skulpturenpark Köln