Gravitationswasserplastik / Gravitation Water Sculpture

Ever since his first spectacular action in 1969 entitled “12 Fass geschöpftes Rheinwasser” (12 Barrels of Scooped Rhine Water), the artist has repeatedly returned to this element, which he puts in relation to his own body as well as to other elements and forces shaping the environment. Here, at the site of the former Colonia insurance company (today AXA), water is addressed in connection with gravity. A long, tapered pendulum hangs from a diagonal support shaft reminiscent of a building crane. While the support shaft construction extends over a calm water pool, another basin under the tip of the pendulum is not sunk into the ground but encased in a triangle of stone walls. When the pendulum is pulled out of its vertical resting position, gravity makes it swing back over this water and then continue to swing symmetrically around its resting position. In this way, the sculpture is reminiscent of a so-called Foucault Pendulum which was used to prove the rotation of the earth.