The artist effectively made looking upward—an act she herself performs so often and so gladly—a requirement for the viewer when, in the video installation tellingly titled BLOODY MOON (2003), she projected the pulsation of the round celestial body—along with its threatening yet light- and heat-bestowing “explosion”—onto the dome of the Kunstpalast at the Ehrenhof in Düsseldorf. The “bloody moon,” which sheds and scatters light and life over the heads of the viewers even as it dies, resembled—and indeed was—the surface of the sun itself. This “photosphere”—perceived as the source of solar radiation and aptly described by the Greeks as a “spherical shell of light”—stood, rotated, and pulsed as a symbol of the immutable affinity of all living things for light and vision. Yet, by causing it to explode, Sabine Kacunko demonstrated just how irreversible and indestructible this process remains, even though its dimensions will likely forever remain a metaphysical magnitude.
Artistic play with dimensions harbors many dangers if the rules governing the medium—and other factors—are not mastered. Before venturing into the dynamic “videosphere,” Sabine Kacunko had—by the early 1990s at the latest—mastered the rules of the static “photosphere” like few other artists of her generation. It was only from this foundation of intuitive confidence that she was able, as early as the late 1990s, to take on the challenge of creating space-dominating photographic installations, some of which were composed of her large-format photographic prints.
Supported by Nikon and SIGMA System Audio-Visuell GmbH
