Kaabi-Linke - Berlin à fleur de peau

Berlin à fleur de peau, 2010
11 transfer prints with fingerprint powder and polyethylene on acrylic; 45 x 65 cm (each)
© Photo: Bernhard Link 2010

…The starting point was formed by diverse traces upon surfaces of public transport stops. After discovering the traces, she applied velvet black print powder – an adhesive substance also made use of by criminologists to render things visible – to the surfaces, and then covered them with anti-graffiti film. Finally, the film would be removed from the surfaces and, serving as a contact print, placed wet on panes of acrylic glass. In this way, a small archive of eleven Berlin ‘skinnings’ came into being, taking in various forms of private bequest: traces of scratches and impact, impressions of sebum, traces of sweat and fat from skin and hair, fingerprints, and so forth. Although these works involve contact-copies developed through the inscription of the signifier, decisive, thought-provoking transformations have also taken place. Hence, as small as these details may seem, the superficial differences resulting from the various forms of inscription at the original site have been levelled in the copies, as has the temporal difference between the various actions leaving the traces. In the pictorial reproductions, the tender contact of skin appears simultaneously and on the same level as the violent cut of a knife. Through the colour-application as well, the unintended contact between skin and glass is drawn closer to an act of vandalism – and with this the passerby to a perpetrator who is invisible and absent. Intent and carelessness, intimacy and violence now appear equalized. Becoming aware of her most innocent gestures, the individual finds herself suddenly exposed to a double danger through Kaabi-Linke’s art: where she leaned on the glass, a knife has carried out its work, the suspicion thus falling on her …

— Falko Schmieder

Excerpt from "On the Track of History." In: Adeli, J. M., Nadia Kaabi-Linke: Tatort. Bielefeld 2010, p. 58.