Turning the 7th Corner

Berlin, Germany (2011)

Turning the Seventh Corner is the third collaboration between David Adjaye and artists, Tim Noble and Sue Webster. It materialised after Webster and Noble learned that Adjaye had an office in Berlin, which is a city they were interested in for its centrality to the European art world and its complex history. They wanted to create a work that would be truly public – not connected to a gallery or curatorial programme. They met Adjaye in the drawing room of Dirty House (London 2002) and discussed ideas for the Berlin piece. In particular, they wanted to explore the incredible split identity of Berlin and the duality of its history.

Located inside the former De Spiegel print factory, the work was conceived as a journey into an urban narrative which leads to the discovery of a surprising moment. The installation draws visitors inside a tunnel-like space, with individually positioned lamps propelling you around seven rotations. The sense of disorientation envelopes you instantly and you are immersed – immediately part of the narrative. Rather than theatrical, the encounter is experiential. The use of a single material and the honest construction achieves this genuine arrival into the space. Once inside the journey, moving through the tunnel with its shadows and its seemingly random lighting that pulls you forward, you come upon a startling event. The gold medusa with its wild shadows is like a portrait of yourself, a reflection of the artist in entropy and a moment of insight into the starkly split identity of the city of Berlin.