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Riddled heaven or The Lord's Prayer and the First Sura of the Koran

Two large metal frameworks in which black clay panels riddled with holes are mounted close together: hundred of spots, glowing and shining, reflections of a bright wall penetrate through the holes in the black clay tiles.
Is it a starry sky?
But if we step back a bit, the words of a prayer emerge out of this illusion of a heavenly image. The text of the Lord's Prayer and the arabesque calligraphy of the First Sura of the Koran, known as "The Opening", suddenly become legible, words that for centuries have given strength and comfort to millions of people by expressing their deepest beliefs.
At the base of the clay panels there are two flat iron receptacles. In them are shimmering metal flakes, with an aesthetic appearance as they twinkle and sparkle, creating an illusion of sea waves, glistening under a starry sky.

s this a romantic image bearing a striking similarity to the most important prayers of two world religions? A nice and neat resemblance?

An illusion.
The words of the Lord's Prayer and the sura were shot into the wet clay plates and then treated with nails. The fired clay plates, which twist during firing, do not fit the U profile of the metal framework, and must be ground by machine to fit into the tracks.
And if you look closely at the shimmering flakes at the bottom of the receptacles you will see that they are nothing but misshapen bits of the lead projectiles that resulted when the plates were shot.

Prayers thus were "written" by an act of violence.

The work was developed in response to the topic of illusion for the Biennale in Kapfenberg and deals not only with a deception at the associative level but also with the delusion that one is able to enforce faith with violence.

Pure illusion? Or rather an oppressive reality?

„Kb05“, Catalogue notes for the 5th International Ceramics Biennale Kapfenberg
2005, p. 38 f.