The Fallen Chandelier
YEAR: 1997
CATALOG NUMBER: 108
PROVENANCE
Commissioned after project competition
Collection CS Holding, Zurich
EXHIBITIONS
Zurich
Permanent installation, 10 Apr 1997
DESCRIPTION
The project The Fallen Chandelier consists of two elements that are connected both spatially and in terms of meaning: a slightly deformed chandelier lying on the floor of a lobby and a ‘snapped’ metal cable and electric wire hanging from the ceiling. From this combination, the viewer understands that on the floor is a chandelier that has ‘fallen’ and smashed after the cable snapped, next to it are a small number of crystal ‘pendants’ which fell off when the chandelier hit the marble floor.
But the viewer, when he approaches the ‘fallen chandelier,’ suddenly hears the quiet clinking of these crystal ‘pendants.’ This sound is audible not in the entire space of the vestibule, but only near the chandelier itself, it is rather soft.
This quiet clinking doesn’t cease, it resounds continually, creating an intricate and beautiful musical play. It’s as though it is an incessantly resounding note of grief, sentimentality, and sadness hanging in the air that doesn’t subside at all, even though the ‘falling’ of the chandelier occurred a long time before the viewer walked up to it.
The sorrowful, and at the same time humorous, theme of the ‘fallen’ chandelier and its clinking is easy to read. The vestibule where all of this ‘happened’ represents an ensemble that was at some time modern, but is now already rather traditional, cold, ‘business-like,’ made of cement, steel and glass, and it is deprived of any human, let alone sentimental, atmosphere. This project speaks precisely about this ‘absence,’ this deficit of humanity, romanticism, the disappearance of them from our life with its daily functionality. It also speaks about a time when man, building his homes and workplaces, always included beauty and sensitivity in all that he did and that they continually surrounded him.
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