Norbert Bisky Tempelhof, 2024
Oil on canvas
150 x 150 cm (59 x 59 in)
Norbert Bisky’s painting depicts a large figure on one side and a tower with several smaller figures standing on its rounded top. The structure is an approximation of the real-life radar tower of the former airport Tempelhof. (Operated by the US military after Word War II through 1993, the airport was declared a landmark in 1995. Closed in 2008, it has since then been used for various functions, its runways becoming a popular park.)
The group of figures standing on the roof of the tower appear, as do many of Bisky's works, simultaneously connected and dispersed. Each exist in their own world, either blissfully unaware or lost in catastrophic despair. This openness of interpretation constitutes one of the characteristics of Bisky’s oeuvre: the glistening bodies are both attractive and joyful, yet their depictions are on second view also fragmentary, their bodies disjointed in the light. Often located in a precarious space—falling, suspended in mid-air, hanging upside down, or hovering near an edge—their untetheredness is a formal expression of an uncertain existential state.
The group of figures standing on the roof of the tower appear, as do many of Bisky's works, simultaneously connected and dispersed. Each exist in their own world, either blissfully unaware or lost in catastrophic despair. This openness of interpretation constitutes one of the characteristics of Bisky’s oeuvre: the glistening bodies are both attractive and joyful, yet their depictions are on second view also fragmentary, their bodies disjointed in the light. Often located in a precarious space—falling, suspended in mid-air, hanging upside down, or hovering near an edge—their untetheredness is a formal expression of an uncertain existential state.