Anouk Lamm Anouk: post/pre, Skyhorses, brass sculpture

Anouk Lamm Anouk: post/pre, Skyhorses, brass sculpture

Anouk Lamm Anouk’s four-part installation responds in its expanse to the immense scale of Helio Tower’s entrance hall. In the abstract acrylic painting from the post/pre series, which leaves much of the background of the painting visible in its natural colour and structure, the artist thematises “emptiness as the foundation of abundance and the Zen Buddhist approach that emptiness is the basis of the richness of life. The title refers to this very emptiness, which is present after (post), before (pre) and in the present moment (/), because it is perpetual. Emptiness is also the ultimate non-space. We are largely concerned with spatiality, but I am particularly interested in non-spaces. A temple, for example, can manifest itself physically in a building, but also as a non-spatial temple within us – as a ‘space’ we visit inside ourselves.” In front of it, two transparent Skyhorses are suspended at a lofty height, their shape reminiscent of the celestial horses that pull the god Helios’ sun chariot. Sphinx-like animal shapes made of brass appear to guard the stairwell, flanked by the lettering “Eternity now”, with which Anouk Lamm Anouk refers to “building for eternity” – a seeming eternity whose nature includes transience and the passage of time.

Helio Tower (BEHF Architects) won the Callwey Award for residential building of the year in 2023 (category “Subsidised Housing”) and the German Design Award for excellent architecture in 2024.