The subject of Facade is the world of the Financial District. The place where the heartbeat, the energy, but also the madness of this time can be felt like nowhere else. In the spring of 2013 Anouk Kruithof performed a number of works on site in which she gave the office staff an active role. Facade can be seen as the artistic processing of the thoughts and images that have emerged from this phase of work.
What makes the installation exceptional is that it is as much a piece of sculpture as it is photographic work, in other words, it is as palpable as it is elusive. The non-materials with which the work is constructed – plastic and styrofoam connect perfectly with this. The result is a very fragile image, literally and figuratively. Seemingly the blocks suggest stability, like the buildings in the Financial District, but they are in fact nothing more than a facade. The combination of the sealing film with the photographs of the suits creates the feeling of an oppressive straitjacket.
Because the blocks are in a circle you can only see the work in motion, thus by walking around it. The impression created when viewing the work, by jumping from one image to another, breaks everything open. At a certain angle, on the iridescent panel in the middle, between the men in suits, the silhouette of a primitive figure appears to emerge. The shadow of another world, alien and archetypal at the same time, as much an image of the future as it is of the past.