Wäiss Kaul, A Local Coral Reef
2022 · Ellergronn, Esch-sur-Alzette · Esch22WÄISS KAUL
in collaboration with the Luxembourg National Museum of Natural History,
is a multifaceted project with a dedicated website: https://www.waisskaul.com
Wäiss Kaul, A Local Coral Reef, is the central piece of the Wäiss Kaul project.
1000x156x250cm, reinforced concrete, 2022
Centre nature et forêts Ellergronn, Esch-sur-Alzette
Wäiss Kaul - Part 1 from Franck Miltgen on Vimeo.
Serge Ecker, Centre nature et forêt Ellergronn,Poeckes constructions, Prefalux, Best ingénieurs conseil, Ferrac, Betons materiaux, FrEsch.asbl, Administration nature et forêts, Luxembourg National Museum of Natural History
Formwork removal, 2022
ISLANDS
The production process for the sculpture
was a driving force for the “Wäiss
Kaul” project. The wooden layers of
the formwork were transformed into
the project’s scenography in 3 different
locations and at 3 different times.
site specific installation, 2022
in collaboration with the Luxembourg National Museum of Natural History,
Hall Paul Wurth, Minett Park, Differdange
Franck Miltgen and Serge Ecker, in collaboration with the Luxembourg National Museum of Natural History
site specific installation, 2022
Bunker-Salle des coffres, Bâtiment 4, Esch-sur-Alzette
WÄISS KAUL, ESCHER SHELLS II
Franck Miltgen and Serge Ecker,
in collaboration with the Luxembourg
National Museum of Natural History
With Luxembourg zealously building its
future, artists Franck Miltgen and Serge
Ecker took the former bunker in the Esch-
Schifflange industrial site’s Bâtiment4 as
the focus of their interest in construction
culture. The “Escher Shells II” exhibition
thus follows on from the “Wäiss Kaul”
project which was presented throughout
the year and took its starting point in the
construction of the “A Local Coral Reef”
sculpture at the Nature and Forestry
Centre, Ellergronn in Esch-Alzette.
The intervention is presented in the two
accessible parts of the bunker. The visual
absence of walls in the tunnel plunged in
darkness thus reveals its spatial presence
and the reinforced concrete material that
gives it its shape. The presentation, which
shows a small 3D printed sculpture in its
center – scaling the volume the object is
located in – is conceived as a sensory
experience that places us in an external
position, a perspective outside the space
we are in, therefore outside ourselves. This
is the perspective the “Wäiss Kaul” project
adopts and presents for concrete.
Concrete is a material which, symbolically,
is strongly associated with cities, the
modernity of built-up space where it gives
expression to order, strength and power.
It is currently a systemic material which,
when associated with sand, constitutes a
limited resource that emits large quantities
of carbon.
In the vault room, a holographic projection
shows us fossils found near the bunker.
Connoting long time periods and hollow
forms inside which living matter is frozen in
time, fossils challenge time by becoming
mineral. Conversely, the holographic
medium is at the frontier of materiality, as
close as possible to its disappearance.
Thus, “Escher Shells II” inscribes the
fragility of the body in an architecture
designed to express permanence, thereby
adding a chapter to the Wäiss Kaul portrait
of our construction culture.
Wäiss Kaul, Escher Shells I,
2023, site specific installation by Administration Nature et forêts and Luxembourg National Museum of Natural History
Ellergronn, Acien bâtiment Mine Cockerill, Esch-sur-Alzette
Wäiss Kaul project took place in the framework of Esch22