Untitled (2019) - Painted steel, nylon, stainless steel 2500 x 140 x 140 mm

Untitled is a hand painted steel column. It is meant to span under tension from floor to ceiling in each space. It has a height capacity between 2500 mm and 3500 mm.

Untitled fits within a category of transfixed objects. This category contains objects that gain a certain autonomy and strength from an internal logic or rigour which is revealed in its dimensions, plan or cross section. However, this authority is quickly subverted by the object’s inability to cope with its surroundings. Its autonomy leaves it rather lost - be it functionally or spatially - or even lonely in its failure to serve.

Untitled is such an object. Perhaps it funtionally and formally most resembles a column. It serves no other purpose than to present itself in the room and organize it as such. From a series of notches on the object’s side, one can read the exact height of the room. That is when the column is brought in to full tension between floor and ceiling. While exerting a self-possessed and superior character, the object fully submits to the space it’s presented in. Even more, it submits to a single spatial property as its conveyor.

This transfixed character not only comes from a confined functionality. It is present in the object’s false formal authority. Through a horizontal section it reveals both a balance and an internal contradiction. The iconic I-beam is mirrored by a counterfeit composite of two T-sections. Maybe the object is inherently flawed and can only submit itself to its context rather than individually assert itself. At first glance, the object appears to be archetypal. On a second sight, it can only be seen as self-sabotaging.