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Kai Richter, Outside now, 2017
concrete, 40x15x15 cm
photo credits: GC / Palinsesti 2017

Kai Richter

Kai Richter (b. 1969) lives and works in Düsseldorf, Westphalia, where he teaches at the University of Applied Science.
In his artistic practice, Richter realizes large temporary installations that take shape from the analysis of the space which will host them, remaining in that area in which architecture, environmental installation, and sculpture coexist.
In these works, Richter mainly utilizes materials from the construction industry, those that are usually used in the building phase and will likely be forgotten once the building is finished.
In this case, supporting beams from construction sites, wooden sleepers and shuttering panels, combined with fast–setting concrete and wooden beams, are put at the centre of attention, organized in impossible structures that fill the architectural volume and highlight the spatial qualities.
Through Richter’s interventions, categories such as old and new, the preexisting and the ephemeral, art and the construction industry are reshuffled and reconsidered.

outSide now

The project consists of an installation made of three fast-setting-concrete sculptures, designed for the green area opposite the ancient ancestral ramparts of San Vito. Cement (or concrete) is a neutral material which is very popular in contemporary culture and architecture. Its use in this project is conceived as a counterweight to the ancient ramparts - loaded with history - and to the natural atmosphere of the green area.

In its preparatory stage, concrete is mixed with water, thus becoming an amorphous, fluid and structureless mass which needs to be moulded with a template in order to acquire a shape.
For the realisation of this group (which will be directly carried out on-site), liquid cement will be poured in a cardboard template that will progressively warp under the weight of the concrete and the water contained in it. Such a process in which both the template and its content influence each other will not be affected by anything but the definition of the starting position on the artist’s part.

Kai Richter