Karin Sander: 1:10
April 1 - May 13, 2000

From April 1 through May 13, D’Amelio Terras is pleased to present its first one-person exhibition with German artist Karin Sander.

The exhibition will consist of forty 3D body scan figures of actual persons in a scale of 1:10.

In this new series of computer-based figurative sculpture, artist Karin Sander devised a new technological process in collaboration with two different companies in Germany (Tecmath/Glatz). With a 3D laser camera system, which normally is used in the fashion industry to measure individual body sizes, here the 3-D body-scanner reads the information of the whole surface of the person's body in approximately twenty seconds. The data of this scan is transformed into an STL file, which then is transferred to a machine called an extruder. The extruder then builds the figure layer by layer through a thirty to forty hour process of fused deposition modeling in an acrylic material ABS (acryl butadien styrol). For the finish, the figure is airbrushed by a technician (Ratzke). The result is a highly realistic reproduction of each single person, a portrait or a copy of the self.

The figures, which are machine-produced replicas, seem frozen in a single moment of time. Each of the subjects creates his of her own self-portrait; they decide what they will wear and how they will appear as sculptures. Once placed on pedestals scattered throughout the exhibition space, the menagerie of forty miniature people, each posed individually, represents a cross-section of the population across a broad spectrum of cultures and occupations. Although the process is complex, the result is surprisingly direct.

The work of Karin Sander deals with perception and the displacement of the familiar. In previous projects, she has transformed what was already at the site in question - most notably architectural structures and surfaces like walls, wallpaper, windows and floors. Karin Sander's exhibitions have included the Museum of Modern Art, New York (project room); "Skulpture Projects in Münster 1997", Münster, Germany; Z.K.M. Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany; Kunsthalle Göppingen, Göppingen, Germany; Kunstverein Arnsberg, Arnsberg, Germany; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland; Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany.