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The sky of Brasilía in Beijing

 

I am always intrigued if it is possible to depict something so imaginary, untouchable and lofty like clouds with the rigid and physically palpable, coming from earth material that we use to make mosaic – stone, glas and ceramic tile.

Sky of Brasilía, 60x60cm, 2019, marble, natural stone, Vidrotil

In this work I used bass relief technique to bring even more depth into the image. Working with hard material who’s hight I can easily influence makes this technique possible.

In the container that left Brasilia End of February 2019 was the unfinished “Sky of Brasilia” mosaic – well wrapped and crated.

End of 2019 after setting up my studio in Beijing I finished the sky, grouted the mosaic with different coloured grout and framed it. 

After having exhibited the “Sky of Brasilía” in 2021 at the Caicifang porcelain studio in Beijing just south of Tiananmen Square, the Brazilian embassy in Beijing offered to add it to their art collection.

It was my last great moment in Beijing to hand the mosaic to the Brazilian ambassador to China Mr Paulo Estivallet de Mesquita and his team in a small ceremony. The gentlemen were genuinely interested, looked and touched the tiles and discussed the process of making such a work. Then we sat and signed a document of handover.

I am very happy that the sky of Brasilia is now being looked at by people that know what it means:

“O ceù e  o mar do Brasilía” –  “The sky is the sea of Brasilía”  Expression by Lucio Costa, city planner of Brasilia

My work in China – a retrospective

Dear friends,

I have physically moved to Berlin now. It’s exciting to be in my home country.  However as always when I move I will not have a studio for at least half a year as my tools and materials are in transition in our container somewhere between Tianjin and Hamburg. I also notice that my soul is still in transition too. The memories from Beijing are kicking in often.

Therefor I would like to use this coming weeks to tell you about my work in China. Back there I was using Chinese social media to tell my friends in Beijing about mosaic and my work – therefor this website and my Instagram account didn’t get regular updates.

My studio was flourishing in Beijing – I wouldn’t have thought I would get so beautifully busy in all areas of my work – my solely crafted mosaics, the workshops and the community mosaic murals. I have the feeling the years in Beijing were the peak of my career.

Let me tell you one after the other. ..

 

 

The oldest Mosaic Mural in Beijing

Do you know where the oldest mosaic in Beijing is? This huge mural is at the platform of  Dongsi Shitiao subway station in Beijing. Made in 1985 at 70 meters long and almost 3 meters tall, it is clearly the largest! It is called Towards the World, and depicts 30 athletes playing 22 different kinds of sports.

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Details of mosaic mural , 1985, Dongsi Shitiao metro station, Beijing

Mosaic Mural, Dongsi Shitiao Metro Station, Beijing

Detail of mosaic mural,1985, Dongsi Shitiao metro station, Beijing

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Mosaic mural, 1985, Dongsi Shitiao Metro Station, Beijing

The Mosaic was designed by Li Huaji and Quan Zhenghuan. The cement tiles were made by Tangshang Arts and Crafts Factory and the mosaic was assembled by Haidian Yongfeng Construction Company in April 1985 . It was the year after Beijing had been awarded the hosting of the 1990 Asian Games. Archery, discus throwing, cycling, fencing, and swimming are all represented in the mural, which consists of thousands  of ceramic blocks, each  of about two centimeters long. The piece delivers the message that ‘Chinese athletes achieve international honor and bring glory to the country’, thereby extending good wishes to the Asian Games

After more than 30 years, the mural had suffered damage due to the constant vibration caused by subway trains. Lots of pieces had been lost . Restoring the mural was considered difficult because the original material and designs are lost. Moreover, the hours during which restoration work could have been done, were limited, as workers can only make repairs when the subway is closed within the  short period of only 3 and half hours at night. Despite all these difficulties, the Beijing Metro Company began to look into the restoration of the mosaic mural in 2017. In order to complete the sophisticated restoration work, the company set up a special working group, which invited experts and scholars from the China Cultural Relics Protection Technology Association and the Department of Ancient Architecture of the Forbidden City to share their expertise. They carried out the work with reference to the restoration methods of the cultural preservation community.

September 2019, on the basis of several  consultations, the repair work of Towards the World was officially launched, and various companies carried out overall investigation of the damages such as the detection of empty spaces behind the mosaic tiles, research for material and color matching of missing parts , cleaning and finally the replacement of the missing tiles.

Details of mosaic mural , 1985, Dongsi Shitiao metro station, Beijing

The 70-meter mosaic has complex colours and different shapes. The biggest problem was the loss of broken gold medals. Zhao Shengliang, the manager of the restoration project, said that at first, they couldn’t recreate the original design due to the pieces of the medals  being broken. The Chinese movie Winning the Championship gave the conservators an interesting idea. After comparing medals from different Olympic Games, they identified the medal as that of Xu Haifeng, the first Chinese gold medal winner at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. Finally they found the model to make the replacement.  After an arduous process, the restoration was finally complete in August 2021.