K.H. Hödicke
Cleaner VII

As in No. 7 of Edition Block, which he also designed, K.H. Hödicke uses a standard handheld window wiper for the edition piece Cleaner VII. Hödicke had first mounted this tool – which he had already used as a painting utensil – in two wall objects in 1965. The inclusion of a mass-produced everyday object in an edition piece, as well as its use as the title, clearly references Marcel Duchamp’s concept of the ready-made.
The mass-produced product intended for cleaning windows is employed in Hödicke’s picture objects like a painter’s squeegee, but here it removes part of the picture surface instead. The wooden panel, covered with white canvas, is cut away accordingly to reveal the wall behind it. The structure of the image is deconstructed. In part of the edition, Hödicke places his signature beneath the glass wiper mounted on the canvas, whose red handle serves as both the coloured element and the pictorial subject of the work. The twenty executed copies of the edition also vary in the cut-out area seemingly created by the squeegee.
Text: Birgit Eusterschulte