FRANKFURT ART COLUMN

Karsten Bott

Formerly Theaterplatz, today Willy-Brandt-Platz: everyone knows the subway station on Anlagenring, which was opened exactly 50 years ago. The building is an eloquent example of Frankfurt Brutalism, which recently lost two important landmarks with the demolition of the Technical City Hall and the Historical Museum. Typical of this architectural style are not only the bare concrete and the massive lines, but also the pebble-stoned slabs that were installed in the waiting areas of the new subway station in the early 1970s.

The artist Karsten Bott discovered traces on these stone concrete slabs that gave him food for thought. Are there grease deposits visible here from the hair of the people who have sat on the seats below day after day? And is it possible to detect abrasion from the pressure of countless jackets and sweaters on the stones where the backrests are missing?

Karsten Bott was so enthusiastic about his discovery of the traces of life that he asked a professional photographer to take the picture that can now be found on the KunstSäule. For him, imprint and abrasion are like ying and yang, becoming and passing away, like collecting and throwing away. The jackets work on the negative and wipe away, the hair works on the positive and adds dark spots.

If you go to the bottom floor of the subway station, you will come face to face with thousands of absentees. Unfortunately, the public transportation companies are not very artful in scrubbing away the imprints again and again, but the traces of our existence are always new. Karsten Bott already used this particular photo for the "Gleiche Vielfache" catalog of the Historisches Museum Frankfurt in 2015, but it unfolds its full power on the circular picture on the Frankfurt KunstSäule.

Exhibition
Karsten Bott
Geister
Aug 30 2024 - April 04 2025

Contact
Florian Koch
Brückenstraße corner Gutzowstraße
60594 Frankfurt am Main

frankfurter-kunstsaeule.de
florian.koch@kultur-am-main.de