Friedhard Kiekeben

Friedhard Kiekeben created an extensive new series of digital works, Tourbillon, and this forms the basis for a transformative -front of property- intervention near the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago. The project was part of the 3rd Terrain Biennial curated by Sabina Ott, and Chicago's Year of Public Art series 2017. 'Tourbillon' is French for Whirlwind, or Vortex. The crisp, undulating vector images are black and white, and contrast with the yellow brickwork of the building. 

The piece makes a powerful visual statement that invites dialogue with the building, its surroundings, and passers-by, and physically creates an energized optical barrier that may add to the sense of home and shelter.  Intertwining vector forms are in stark contrast to the vertical regularity of the traditional ironwork of the fencing. References to graffity and street art (so much of which originated on Chicago's South Side) are noticeable and equally present are more general notions of dynamic systems (scientific? architectural? non-Euclidean?) that go beyond traditional one-dimensional pictorial spaces and ideas. Many of the local residents, passing visitors, or skateboarding teens, stopping in their cars, cell phone in hand, delighted in engaging with this art intervention that unexpectedly landed in their neighborhood.

Sindan