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Full Circle

Knut Henrik Henriksen, Full Circle, Art on the Underground, London, Kings Cross Station, Architectural Doubt, Architectural Frustrations

When Henriksen was invited to submit a proposal for the new King’s Cross station in London, he received pages and pages of descriptions and regulations about what was not allowed for reasons of fire safety, materials certification, security, etc., followed by a one-page invitation. As an artist working alone in the studio, the bureaucracy seemed to pose an impossible burden. So he decided to use the materials that were already being used in the tunnel, to have his two sculptures designed by the project’s architects and installed by the construction workers who were already working in the station. In two sections of tunnel, both with the classical London Underground shape, Henriksen arranged for the part of the wall that was cut off by the floor to be mounted on the wall. The sculptures, each titled Full Circle, 2009/2010, are, in Henriksen’s words, ‘a tribute to the worker who built the terminal hall, the architect who drew it, the engineer who planned it, the materials used in its construction, and the bureaucracy itself’.

Knut Henrik Henriksen, Full Circle, Art on the Underground, London, Kings Cross Station, Architectural Doubt, Architectural Frustrations
Knut Henrik Henriksen, Full Circle, Art on the Underground, London, Kings Cross Station, Architectural Doubt, Architectural Frustrations
Knut Henrik Henriksen, Full Circle, Art on the Underground, London, Kings Cross Station, Architectural Doubt, Architectural Frustrations
Knut Henrik Henriksen, Full Circle, Art on the Underground, London, Kings Cross Station, Architectural Doubt, Architectural Frustrations
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