Ballroom

Ballroom
2007
Collection of balls (marbles to fist size ball specimens), steam bath with sandblasted Plexiglas membrane, light tubes, oversized glass test tubes with primal colored ball selection

In 2007 I had an exhibition in Wiesbaden in the Gallery of The Fluxus Freunde Wiesbaden e. V
in cooperation with the Finnish artists Sari Palosaari and Mia Rinne. The Exhibition was curated by artist group located in Frankfurt a M called 431 art and the show went under the name “Northbound-installations and media art from Finland”.
The exhibition spaces were located in a former Jewish bath and consisted of various shower and spa facilities that were provided to install spatial artworks. One of the cabins provided me with a stainless steel bath that I modified for the work “ Ballroom”.
Remembering the childhood pleasure of lying within a sea of balls I filled the bath with over thousand unique specimens of balls. These have been collected over the last five years and just were asking for to being presented in this particular way.
The work went together with the work “Pharma CV”, a color sorted selection of balls in oversized glass blown test tubes on the wall.

Dense matter

Dense matter
2006
Light table, selection of balls

I was growing up influenced by my parents that had a strong interest in higher mathematics, physics, nature and art. During my childhood my inner world was always filled with terms originating these fields. The ball in its various forms and shapes forms for me a kind of nucleus around which visual memories revolves. The shape of a ball or sphere somewhat attracts associations to biological topics and narratives of the microcosm and its molecular world.
In one of my early childhood memories I remember myself lying in an IKEA ball sea and ruminating about abstracts ideas of molecules, dense matter and black holes. The title “Dense matter”, originates from physics, matter is anything that has both mass and volume (takes up space). Somehow it playfully popped in my head and stuck. During the last several years I have tried to collect as many unique ball specimens as possible, and have assembled over 1300 individual items. Why balls have been made?We like the smooth surface and the eye pleasing shape- coupled with an irresistible impulse of kicking it into the landscape or smashing it against the wall.
With a recorded history of at least 5000 years the ball is the earliest toy known to men. Along active games the most highly developed global played ones are played with balls and there is a great amount of them. The selected items on this table are inviting you to brainstorm and find a narrative element