Exhibition | By Hand + HOUSE, Dan Stockholm’s Intimate Investigations of Home

BERLIN—Appearing as mere loosely stacked bricks, a second look reveals intimately cupped hands embedded in each. Dan Stockholm‘s  installation By Hand was part of his exhibition HOUSE at Künstlerhaus Bethanien (March 4 – 27, 2016). Days after his father’s death in 2013, the artist in a performance methodically touched his father’s entire house inch by inch, the gallery writes. From his investigations, Stockholm made and adapted plaster casts of his handprints. The cupped hands, as seen in HOUSE, mimic those intimate moments and gestures.

The intimate moments now embody their own structure, the abstract shape of his father’s home reincarnated through gesture.

Colossal writes, for this particular installation, Stockholm placed negative plaster casts of his cupped hands into a series of red clay bricks, which are reflected by the casts themselves on nearby skeletal metal piping in the exhibition. Some objects showcase both hands, while others only hint to a sliver of a finger or palm.

The act of touching has become a fundamental part of Stockholm’s working process. Colossal writes Stockholm’s work directs attention to the innate art of the making process in what he calls “creative archeology.”

By Hand is one of several pieces by Dan Stockholm that explores the process of making an object by capturing its performative actions within the work.

View more of Stockholm’s sculptural works on his website.

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