Observatory

Catherine Yass (1963 - )

Colour transparency and light-box

2000

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© Catherine Yass

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Image of Observatory
  • About the work
    Location
    Country: Germany
    City: Berlin
    Place: British Embassy
    Observatory reveals a colourful semi-abstract view of the interior of the Einstein Tower, an astrophysical observatory in the Albert Einstein Science Park in Potsdam. Two colour transparencies (one positive and one negative) are superimposed onto a light-box. The observatory was designed by Eric Mendelsohn in 1919–1920, a German-born architect who settled in England in 1933 to escape Nazi persecution in 1919–1920 and 1935 respectively.
     
    Catherine Yass explains:
     
    The Einstein Tower is designed to split light into the colours of the spectrum ... The [sun] light coming through the open roof is brought down into the tower and reflected by a 45-degree mirror into a horizontal tunnel, where it is split into the spectrum. The camera is placed in front of the mirror so as to intercept the light as it turns from white light to colour. The light in the image is coloured photographically, by placing a blue negative over a positive image.... In this image [the camera] becomes part of the process of investigating light, and the view in the mirror is like the camera’s self-portrait, with one mechanism looking at another.
     
    Observatory is one of two photographic light-boxes by Yass commissioned in 2000 by the Collection on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, for the British Embassy in Berlin. The commission coincided with the construction of a new British Embassy following the reunification of Germany in 1990, to replace the historical site that had been destroyed during the Second World War.
  • About the artist
    Catherine Yass was born in London and studied at the Slade School of Art (1982–1986) and at Goldsmiths’ College (1989–1990). Yass is an artist who uses film and photography to document time and space, using her work to explore the psychological and formal properties of architecture and built environments. In 2002 she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize and she has participated in the judging panels for both The Jerwood Photography Prize and The Citibank Photography Prize. Her work, which has been widely exhibited internationally, is represented in public museum collections including the Tate, London; the Biblioteca Albertina, Leipzig; and The Jewish Museum, New York. Yass lives and works in London.
  • Explore
    Places
    Germany, Berlin
    Subjects
    topography, observatory, scientific interior
    Materials & Techniques
    light-box, photograph (as object name), colour transparency
  • Details
    Artist
    Catherine Yass (1963 - )
    Title
    Observatory
    Date
    2000
    Medium
    Colour transparency and light-box
    Dimensions
    height: 97.30 cm, width: 134.00 cm, depth: 12.70 cm
    Acquisition
    Commissioned from the artist, July 2000
    Provenance
    the artist
    GAC number
    17496