Jahresgabe

Towards an Alphabet_Dino Runes (Düsseldorf Version) A–K

Brätsch, Kerstin

Large fashion brands have always bought up familiar motifs for their own use: Peanuts, Joy Division, Mondrian. There is one question fans have obsessed over: is the desire for exclusivity now meant to be satiated by things already seen hundreds of times? Dinosaur items have an even greater convergence potential. They are appreciated for their educational value and ability to convey respect. Often not cute, dinosaurs pose no acute threat to people at the risk of narcissism. That makes them in and of themselves perfect objects to be looked at: nobody compares themselves to dinosaurs, just with their value-creation instances. Kerstin Brätsch’s wallpaper Towards an Alphabet_Dino Runes (Düsseldorf Version), for example, shows a chorus in freefall, spelling out a precious collapse, a character set for a showcase, parsing expectations of the subject. For those who want to take something of this away with them, there is an adhesive quality—looking more closely, each of these beings would be able to entice inner voices away from their expected positions. The pet dinosaur with its data collar as a small monolith contains a pre-packaged piece of the action. The 14-meter wall shows off the scale in all its glory.

Peter Abs