State of Mind
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- State of Mind
- 2007
- paper, destroyed secret documents of STASI
There are numerous examples in Knorr’s practice, where he picked on the contrast between the metamorphic of material and the fixed status and meaning of things that are made out of it. Almost all works involve the idea of transforming one thing into another, sometimes literally, sometimes by renaming, sometimes through obliterating the existing context of production that conditions the way things are categorized and used in communication between people. One of Knorr’s sculptures is a chunk papier-mâché made from Stasi files intentionally destroyed after the fall of the Berlin wall, which the artist obtained from a museum in East Germany. The paper, which used to contain information decisive for life or death of citizens living under the totalitarian regime, becomes an abstract form that resembles a fake stone. Presented on a pedestal, it could still be a piece from the museum of resistance – one of the stones thrown at police during a demonstration. A.S.