In 1977, Per Kirkeby had a brick sculpture erected behind the Orangerie for documenta 7, which had to be removed for structural reasons despite its great public acceptance. Two exhibitions later, a spatial sculpture was erected at the far end of the documenta hall as a replacement, subject to comparable principles of form.
Its anonymous clinker brickwork without individual traces of manufacture makes it resemble a technical functional building and contrasts it with the use of materials in the documenta hall. In the meandering course of the walls of the sculptural architecture, the interior and exterior become intertwined in a spatial concept that can be experienced as an alternation of compactness and transparency, of opening and closing.
