Autobahn (1995)

Highways are no man’s land. Geographical locations mean just chronographic dimensions. The highway is a machine. Movement is therefore compulsory. It crosses the landscape without space and time. A route without right and left. Events rush by in a moment. The destination lies in the future. The past is carried along in its own „machina“ until it fizzles out the second you arrive. The present is called exit, a rest stop. Designated by signs on the side of the road without an emotional counter-image. The event is called a traffic jam, an accident and signifies

a standstill in the timeless space between the „behind-you-is-a-road“ and the „in front-of-you-is-a-road“. The series of autobahn paintings show this de-localization as a core message, as a metaphor of movement in generally. The documentation of a car journey from Berlin to Paris in fifteen painting allows us to feel the movement in space. The monotony of driving is only interrupted by tunnels and bridges. Signs on the side of the highway mark the distances still to be covered and give the names of rest stops and rest areas. Consequently, the official higway numbers are the intertitles of the series.