Katinka Bock, Horizontal Alphabet (black), 2016: a CNAP-commissioned protocol-based work at MuCEM

Spread across the floor of the Casemate gallery inside Fort Saint-Jean, the site of MuCEM in Marseilles, Horizontal Alphabet (Black) (FNAC 2016-0433) is made up of rectangular bricks in black ceramic. The work is part of a Cnap-led programme to commission protocol-based works for public spaces, mostly outdoors. Each work is installed for a short period, ranging from 1 to 3 years, the intention being that it should be seen in different locations across France. The Centre national des arts plastiques conserves the instructions or protocol from which the work is activated at each new location.

Many works by the German artist, Katinka Bock bear witness to the special attention she pays to the human scale: that is true also for Horizontal Alphabet (black), where the size of each brick is determined by a handprint or footprint.

This artwork is based on repetition but also on human diversity: nothing is ever identical. She takes mankind’s individuality and universality as her starting points. The hand, foot, thumb and femur are all body measurements that once were (or still are) used as units of measurement. There is no standard brick. Depending on region, country or culture, these units of measurement differ to varying degrees, according to tradition, common practice or fashion.

Installed in summer 2017, Katinka Bock’s ceramic bricks are destined to disappear over time. Meanwhile, visitors should take care to avoid walking on the artwork, at the risk of crushing someone.

The artist

Katinka Bock was born in 1976 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. She lives and works partly in Paris and partly in Berlin. She has won the Ricard Foundation Prize (2012) and Villa Medici award (2012/2013) and her work has recently been exhibited at the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle (USA), MAMCO in Geneva (Switzerland), KIOSK in Ghent (Belgium) and MUDAM in Luxembourg.