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This installation is based on Adolph Menzel's famous painting Atelierwand, 1872. It shows plaster casts of faces and hands, legs and torsos, tools and other paraphernalia specific to his studio. I have owned a post card of this image for years. It suddenly came into focus one day when I examined my studio and realised that it is also full of casts, which are just tools for making images. And like Menzel's casts, mine are of friends and acquaintances and have very quickly become a kind of memorial.

 

Studio Spectres is an animation filmed at Cremer Street Studios, now demolished. The film is on show at James Simon Gallery, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin as part of Nah am Leben, until 2020.

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