Olaf Nicolai & Heidi Specker: Le Pigment de la Lumi�re

Olaf Nicolai developed the work Le pigment de la lumière for the reconstructed Master’s Houses in Dessau. It involved coating the walls with marble dust with varying degrees of granulation to create a geometrical pattern, thus producing a subtle relief that responds to the changing light conditions. In this work, Nicolai continues to pursue his artistic interest in grappling with the formal concept of camouflage, since, to begin with, the wall surfaces are almost invisible to the viewer. Heidi Specker gives Le pigment de la lumière a heightened sense of presence in her photography. Her pictures direct the gaze of the viewer to the contouring and the interplay of surface and space—a reflective phenomenon that is a calculated part of Nicolai’s wall surfaces. In Nicolai and Specker’s joint publication, an aesthetic intervention in the reconstructed space is further extrapolated using the medium of photography presented in book form.