Lucas Odahara

Hand Dialogue (after Kollwitz, after Clark), 2019
Glazed ceramic tiles
Tunnel's inner walls: 10 x 2,5m each.

Comissioned by the Senators für Kultur Bremen for the pedestrial tunnel at the Käthe-Kollwitz- Straße in Bremen Lesum. Permanent installed in December 2019.

Press release:

With the design of the railway underpass in the Käthe-Kollwitz-Straße, the artist Lucas Odahara has created a site-specific installation that views the work of the artist Käthe Kollwitz from the perspective of contemporary working conditions. On the whole, Kollwitz often portrayed the lives of workers in her work, of whom she herself said that, in contrast to the bourgeoisie, they "have courage". The tunnel in Bremen that bears her name is a dialogue. Odahara's work is about a dialogue between the walls of the tunnel, between different times, different practices and above all between the body that works and the laws that shape it.

On one tunnel wall, excerpts from Kollwitz's historical drawings are reinterpreted. The focus here is on the hands of the workers* whom the artist has depicted. On the opposite mural, a pattern of knots and tunnels shows sentences taken directly from German labour laws. Hand Dialogue (after Kollwitz, after Clark) is a reminder of the flexibility and bodily features of written language, which create the basic conditions for the work of our bodies. The tunnel becomes a space of negotiation between the body that executes these laws on the one hand and the language that defines them on the other. For whom are these laws intended and how do they get to our body, both physically and bureaucratically? These questions about the mutual dependence and negotiation between body and language are inspired by the pioneering artist Lygia Clark. Her work entitled "Hand Dialogue" (1966), which consists of an elastic band in the form of a Möbius-shaped strip connecting two hands, gives the work its assigned title. Hand Dialogue is thus also, an art historical dialogue between these two critical artists.

*special thanks to Rose Pfister, Anja Wohlgemuth, Cássia Vila, Suin Kwon, Gustavo Méndez Lopez and Ulrich Jahn.

Images: Installation views. Photos: Jens Weyers