Eight-day direct exposure on black-and-white photographic paper, from the series Monochrom City, shot from the 12th story of the Haus des Lehrers, Alexanderplatz, Berlin, 130 x 320 cm.

The facade of the Centrum Warenhaus (später Kaufhof) consisted of a total of 3,927 modules. Material: coated sheet aluminum. Each module consists of two halves screwed together. Shape and dimensions of all modules are the same (W 67.5 cm x H 205 cm x D 42.2 cm). Each module was offset from its neighbors and connected to them by a total of eight screws. Module dimensions: gross surface area (top) 0.29 m2, gross surface area (front) 1.38 m2, mounted surface area (including gaps) 1.96 m2, flattened surface area 2.03 m2, sheet thickness 0.002 m, material volume 0.00406 m3, average weight 11 kg (10.8–11.4 kg). Total weight of all modules: approximately 43.2 t. Calculated dimensions: facade height = n (modules) * 1.45 m + 0.6 m; facade width = n (modules) * 1.35 m; stack height (tolerance ±0) = n (modules) * 0.18 m + 0.253 m, e.g. for a stack of ten modules, height = 10 * 0.18 m + 0.253 m = 2.053 m

On April 30, 2005, the Kaufhof department store (formerly the Centrum Warenhaus) auctioned off part of its own facade on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz. The individual facade sections were presented in a stall on the square and sold by a professional auctioneer. Passersby showed little interest. Heike Klussmann joined the crowd and bid on the sections, thereby staging the actually occurring event.

Sections of the aluminum facade of the Kaufhof department store (formerly the Centrum Warenhaus) on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz, which the artist had melted down into raw aluminum ingots after the facade was auctioned off on April 30, 2005.

www.berlinischegalerie.de/berlin8909

The former Centrum Warenhaus department store on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz, today the Galeria Kaufhof, was renovated in 2004–05, and in the process its distinctive aluminum “honeycomb” facade was removed. However, it was never possible to see the building naked: For one thing, the facade was covered in building wrap during disassembly, but more importantly, the construction process dictated that the old building be progressively replaced by the new one, piece by piece. As a result, the interface between old and new was never visible.

With the animation Digistrip, Heike Klussmann fulfilled her desire to see the Centrum Warenhaus naked, replacing the aluminum facade pixel by pixel. Each click becomes a still in the film. The facade is digitally dismantled, in a process determined by the capacities of digital tools. Animation created from 1,815 individual frames, 1:12 min. + 15 frames.

Digistrip is the animated complement to Realstrip.

The former Centrum Warenhaus department store on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz, today the Galeria Kaufhof, was renovated in 2004–05, and in the process its distinctive aluminum “honeycomb” facade was removed. In the film Realstrip, we see one section of the facade being disassembled piece by piece. The film begins with the removal of the first piece of the facade from the upper left corner of the frame and ends with the last piece being carried out of the bottom right corner. DV, 11 hours 12 min.

Realstrip is the documentary complement to Digistrip.

Heike Klussmann
KAUFHOF
September 24 - October 29

The Super 8 animation Kaufhof off the Reel shows me in my studio, apparently building a structure with a watering can. This appearance, however, is revealed to be a process of deconstruction shown in reverse.