N.CHT W.HR (1989) Placed on the façade of a 18th century palace that also was used as a movie location by Hitchcock for his movie 39 Steps there was visible an enigmatic statement in reverse reading order. By leaving out the phonemes it gave rise to the possibility to fill in different words and so to generate different meanings. The work was based on the invitation to make an artwork to perform for a specific art space. I proposed to divert the presumed working of an inner and outer world of art and placed the artwork into another realm by using the architectural inner-outer division of the façade. That meant that the work would not act as a typical isolated artwork or as a typical piece of applied street based functional object.

Its utilitarian mode was to think differently about the schism between art as a profound activity and daily life as the ordinary one. Also to question why the identity of a building was primarily based on its faced function. What would happen if the work would play with that functionality? What would happen if the work would reverse these assumptions to announce that the outer world of a museum is now the most art like (designed fiction) and all that takes place in a museum is actually real? Or leave this even, because of the blanks in the words, as undecidable?

Specifications: Dimensions: 12m. by 1.10m. Material: Aluminium boxletters, Chainlight system activated by time-clock, high quality acrylate.

Exhibited: 'Unbegrenzte Freyung: die Niederländer', Vienna, Austria (1989). Schloss Ringenberg, Germany (1997).