Light installation at the Goethe-Institute Prague, ČR
Oct. 10th 2024 – Nov. 06th 2024
“For me, you were, along with much else, also like a window through which I could see the streets. I could not do that by myself, for tall though …,” writes Franz Kafka to his school friend Oskar Pollak shortly after their school-leaving exams.(1)
In another letter to Pollak it is stated: “They are all connected to each other,” – the people are meant – “by ropes, and it is already evil when the ropes loosen around one, and one sinks a little lower than the others into the empty space, and ghastly when the ropes tear and you fall.“(2)
The alley window as a medium for viewing and insight – and the rope, depending on the context, as a bridge over the abyss, a social bond, or a shackle. The Berlin artist Franz John engages with these motifs in Kafka’s work through his piece Das Gassenfenster.(3) (The Alley Window) by stretching light wires across the windows of the Goethe-Institute in Prague, illuminating multiple layers of meaning.
Text: Jan Brandt