Archive / Repetitions

Der Capital

Der Capital is a series of twenty-four paintings made in 2000. The title is deliberately playful. Not Das Kapital, but Der Capital—perhaps as in "Well... der!", perhaps simply referring to the capital city itself. It marks an important moment in my practice, introducing the use of laser-copy and acrylic image transfers that would remain central to my work for many years. More importantly, it marks a shift from constructing images in the studio towards allowing direct experience to determine the work.

The series began with a journey.

24 Hours

On the eve of my solo exhibition Gravity Can Be a Cruel Mistress at Paton Gallery, I travelled to London full of anticipation. I was staying at One Aldwych, but excitement refused to let me settle. Instead of going to bed, I wandered out into the city with no destination in mind. It became a kind of shamanic walk, allowing chance encounters to determine the route. I simply walked until London revealed itself.

The first encounter was unexpected. There was a flasher on the Underground

Not the beginning I had imagined.

From there the city unfolded one episode at a time. I found myself in Islington drinking cocktails, then a few beers, followed by a late-night kebab. In a corner shop I watched a young boy buying cigarettes. He looked shifty. Later I wandered into a Latin American dance club full of bodybuilders, the air heavy with testosterone and perfume.

By two o'clock in the morning it seemed sensible to take a taxi back to the hotel. Instead, I decided to walk. The city became quieter. In a telephone box hundreds of cards advertising call girls covered the walls. I picked one up. Later it would find its way into one of the paintings.

At one point I walked into the lobby of an imposing office building and asked the security guard for a glass of water. I wasn't really thirsty. I simply wanted to stand for a few moments inside the vast marble atrium before continuing my journey.

As dawn approached, road sweepers buzzed through empty streets preparing the city for another day. I arrived outside Buckingham Palace sometime around four or five in the morning and remember being mildly irritated that all the lights appeared to be on. My father had always insisted we turned the lights off at home. Why, I wondered, should the Queen be allowed to leave hers burning all night?

The city slowly woke around me. Joggers appeared, followed by white vans carrying builders and delivery drivers. Soon afterwards came the BMWs transporting city traders into the financial district. Along the Thames there was a commotion after someone had jumped from a bridge. I never discovered what happened, but I still hope they survived.

Later, sitting beneath the feet of a First World War memorial, I found myself imagining that if all the statues dedicated to the Unknown Soldier in London were gathered together they would become an army once again. Better still, that they might be living statues.

On the Underground people sat silently behind newspapers and paperback books, absorbed in their own worlds. This was before smartphones, yet people already seemed more interested in their newspapers and books than engaging with the strangers sitting beside them.

As the day continued, shoppers replaced commuters, pigeons descended on discarded bread, tourists gathered beneath monuments with cameras in hand, and by late afternoon I deliberately joined the rush-hour crowds leaving Bank station. Packed tightly together like sardines, I became just another commuter within the system I had spent the previous twenty-four hours observing.

A few hours later I returned to One Aldwych, rested briefly, and then travelled to the gallery for the opening of my exhibition. The experience stayed with me.

Back in the studio, each encounter became a small painting. Twenty-four moments were translated into twenty-four panels, each the same size, each recording a fragment of the journey. As the work developed, the individual paintings gradually ceased to function as separate images. Together they became a single portrait of a city observed over the course of one long and tiring day.

The complete work was later acquired as a single piece and remains in a private collection in the United States. I have always been pleased that the series stayed together. Although each painting records an individual encounter, Der Capital was conceived as one work—a single walk through London, preserved in twenty-four fragments.