Project for Drewen

Chimneys play a central role in Jan Svenungsson’s work. Probably best known is his ongoing sculpture project, for which he builds (non-functional) brick chimneys in public spaces. Svenungsson realized the first sculpture with a height of 10 metres in 1992 for the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Each subsequent chimney is one metre higher than its predecessor.
When Svenungsson was invited to erect the fourth, 14metre-high sculpture in Drewen, Germany, he instead proposed to create a photograph with a painted chimney. This photograph became the material for his Project for Drewen, a series of unique prints for which he combined photogravure with individual handprints executed in sugar lift aquatint.

‘If the power of this manipulated image proves strong enough’, Svenungsson wrote for the accompanying catalogue, ‘I am convinced that it will one day become reality’.
The actual chimney was indeed realized two years later, in November 1999.