Kunsthalle Rear Wall, 1999, temporary installation, Kunsthalle Basel

37 x 5.5 m, Acrylic paint, wood, Plexiglas®, neon lamp tubes, timer, Photos: Christian Vogt, Catalogue: Kunsthalle Basel, 31/1999, Schwabe publishing house

As a magenta surface with two long light-green rectangular solids at its upper and lower bounderies, the Kunsthalle rear wall formed, during the year 1999, the illuminated building opposite to the Elisabethenkirche’s somber lateral wall.

The entire surface of the wall had been painted in monochrome magenta. The benches in front of the wall had been removed and replaced with a new seat in form of a long green rectangular solid. A light-green neon light structure of the same dimensions passes parallel to it, along the roof. At dusk, the light structure turns on automatically, illuminating the square and the opposite church wall. The green light blends itself with the magenta into a new color on the wall.

Considering the changing luminosity and the installation as an accessible image, the Kunsthalle rear wall is in constant modification throughout the time of the day and year. In front of the luminous surface, in the geometrically reduced scene of the wall, people seem to take stage. The wall changes from monochrome image to being a screen for light and shadow projections, as well as a stage for users, spectators and passersby.