Daybreak Edition

This edition was produced on the occasion of exhibition “Daybreak” at Platform Sarai, Frankfurt am Main. The edition functioned as a complementary printed matter that was generated from the research behind the main exhibit of the show. The exhibition was the first installment of a long-term project that explores the positions and functions of “nature” in modern art.

The research for this piece, and the edition, centered around Murnau am Staffelsee, a town on the edge of Bavarian Alps where Gabriele Münter and Wassily Kandinsky established an artists colony, and developed the style that was to become Der Blaue Reiter and German expressionism. It is also the place where Expressionist filmmaker F.W.Murnau took his pseudonym from. In this piece, light functions as the conceptual tool to organise our ideas. The vivid colour of nature seen in stark light was vital to the visual language of Münter and Kandinsky’s art from this period. Light also played central role in Murnau’s films, particularly in his iconic Nosferatu (1922) of which absence of light is the chief concern, and his last film Tabu (1931) which were shot entirely under natural light in Tahiti. The main section of this edition is the faithful reproduction of the letter Count Orlok from Nosferatu silk-screened in gold, sent to the real estate company which prompted the film’s protagonist’s trip. Considering the history of the avant-garde artists’ search for a perfect place to produce art, we thought it’d be interesting to re-read the tradition of vampire story as a never-ending land dispute.

Silkscreen and LaserJet on paper
Edition of 35
2013