When: 27.06.2009 - 06.09.2009
Where: Hermitage, Saint-Petersburg, Russia
About
27 June 2009, an installation by Wim Delvoye was presented in the frames of the Hermitage 20/21 project at Saltykovsky entrance of the Winter Palace. With its mathematical symmetry and skeletal tracery, Delvoye’s stainless steel bulldozer is a hybrid machine combining the architectural and mechanical, the divine and secular, the feminine and masculine. Deriving its composite parts from gothic cathedrals, the work evokes the representation of divine harmony and cosmological order in northern Gothic architecture and conveys both lightness and density. "D11" functions as an emblem for the removal of earthly temporal constructs in order to allow for human aspirations that reach toward the heavens - an earthmover literally and figuratively. At the same time the work suggests a struggle between the greater glory and power of God, and the unrelenting (and destructive) potential of mortal ingenuity, might, and godly ambition.