Dieter Appelt

a sequence of 8 panels, comprising 312 photographs, each panel framed, signed, titled, and numbered sequentially in ink, the photographer's Berlin studio, date, and copyright stamps, signed, dated, and editioned 'e. a.' in ink, the first panel annotated '8 teil' and dedicated 'für Hanna Appelt' in ink on a typeset label and with a postcard of the Forth Rail Bridge and hanging schematic, on the reverse, 2003 (8)

Galerie Kicken Berlin, 2011

Dieter Appelt, Dieter Appelt / Forth Bridge-Cinema. Metric Space = (Montréal: Centre Canadien d'Architecture, 2005), pp. 57-60

Matthias Flügge, Raum, Orte der Kunst (Berlin, 2007), pp. 312-3

This impressive sequence of 312 photographs, framed in 8 panels, is in generally excellent condition. Each print is 3 7/8 by 5 3/8 in. (9.8 by 13.7 cm.). Each panel has not be examined out of the frame. The prints, however, appear neutral in tone and with no visible condition issues. Very faint graphite registration lines are visible around some of the prints. A postcard of the Forth Rail Bridge is affixed to the reverse of the first panel, as well as a hanging guide with the overall dimensions. The Galerie Kicken Berlin invoice indicates that this is a numbered edition of 3, plus an artist's proof, and was printed in 2011.
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As part of the Centre Canadien d’Architecture’s Tangent series, Dieter Appelt was commissioned to create a new work inspired by the CCA’s vast collection and archives.   Appelt was immediately drawn to a large group of photographs related to the Forth Bridge, a 19^th century cantilevered steel bridge spanning the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh, Scotland, which he had visited nearly three decades earlier.

Drawing upon the extensive photographs, drawings, blueprints, and ephemera that comprise the CCA’s Forth Bridge Archive, Appelt studied the engineering and construction of the Forth Bridge, devising a highly systematic plan for its documentation.   After first taking still photographs of the full span, he employed a 35mm motion picture camera that took individual 1/125-second frames.   These film stills were then arranged into grids based on a complex numbering system corresponding to the bridge’s railings.  Together, the 8 panels, each with 39 single-frame photographs, create a ‘cinematographic-photographic scan’ of the bridge that can be read horizontally across the panels, but also from top to bottom, like a scroll.

Forth Bridge—Cinema. Metric Space is represented in the collections of the Centre Canadien d’Architecture and the National Galleries of Scotland.