"Knotty Stilts": Cornelia Konrads

When Cornelia Konrads came to work with our students, she came from Paris, France. She was born in Wuppertal, Germany and lives actually partly near Hannover/Germany partly near Paris/ France. Her work is totally “site specific”. This means that she does not commit to what project she will do,until she has viewed possible sites and chosen the one that ‘catches her fancy’. In this case, she considered certain walls to ‘alter’, but ended up choosing the art department “building on stilts’ where she was drawn to the beams that support the building. She made two ‘faux’ beams, which she constructed so that they appear knotted. The viewer is left wondering what on earth they are--whether they are functional, how wood of that dimension could be knotted!

Cornelia’s website is http://www.cokonrads.de/.
Besides art, she studied philosophy. She has had numerous site specific commissions in public spaces, sculpture parks and private gardens, in Germany, Netherlands, France, Belguim, Sweden, Italy, Taiwan, South Korea and Australia. This is her second project in the United States.

May 2011