"Fliesen²" by Friederike Böhm & Marie Witte
Diploma, 2025

„Fliesen²“
by Friederike Böhm & Marie Witte
2025
Diploma

Split panels 497 × 203 cm; fine art prints 95 × 127 cm; stage wall made of HDF panels, roof battens 690 × 295 cm; tile adhesive 46 × 31 cm

Tiles² is dedicated to the architectural phenomenon of tiled façades in West German cities. Houses are built in the expectation of permanence and under the promise of endurance. Their façades communicate with the public space over decades, shaping the city’s visual memory. Especially in the West German post-war period, ceramic tiles were used on a massive scale as façade cladding. This work traces these specific surfaces back to their historical context of origin and argues that the materiality and externality of tiled façades embody a correspondence to West German post-war society. In the surfaces of the 1950s, unconscious forms of expression are preserved.

The accompanying publication derives the cultural-historical foundations of tiled façades and presents an extensive photographic research. Photography here serves as an analytical tool that not only documents the surfaces but also makes them comparable and legible. The subsequent artistic process is driven by the question of possible interventions in the ceramic material. How can the meanings and ideological charge of tiled façades be brought to the fore?

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