Bram Braam

In his sculptural installations Bram Braam combines various media such as photography, screen printing and film. His works range from large-scale site-specific installations to small-scale sculptures. The experience of time and space are recurring elements of his work, which deals with the architecture of the 20th century and forms of modernist design. Braam is inspired by the approaches of the New Objectivity, functionalism and constructivism....

In his sculptural installations Bram Braam combines various media such as photography, screen printing and film. His works range from large-scale site-specific installations to small-scale sculptures. The experience of time and space are recurring elements of his work, which deals with the architecture of the 20th century and forms of modernist design. Braam is inspired by the approaches of the New Objectivity, functionalism and constructivism. He particularly devotes himself to the idea of utopia, to Le Corbusier, and architects of the De Stijl movement. In his projects, invariably he also addresses the failure of utopias in architecture. He critically examines how social control mechanisms manifest themselves in architectural planning. To this end, he investigates various places and buildings, and with a variety of means of expression transforms his observations in his site-specific spatial works. The idea of shaping the environment through architecture and planning is a central aspect in this. In the installation City of Tomorrow (2014), Braam analyzes the town center of Cumbernauld, near Glasgow in Scotland, a planned city founded in 1956, and translates his impressions and experiences in the face of this failed experiment of visionary social architecture into a space-filling architectural sculpture. His spatial designs are reminiscent of ventilation shafts, stairs and hallways. Integrated video clips and seemingly claustrophobic cabins and fixtures give an oppressive impression of the dilapidated architectural landscape. In his new work Transition of Structures (2014), Braam explores Berlin, the place where he lives and works. He collects photographic views and sketches of eye-catching buildings and places in Berlin that to him illustrate the transformation of the city. He puts together the photos into a collage, in layers and like pieces of a puzzle, and connects them with various building materials such as glass and concrete. Here too, the focus is on the urban landscape as a manmade environment; spatial and material experience is transferred through his sculpture, from the urban into the exhibition space.