M HKA Ensembles

Painting, 90 x 135 cm.

Collection: Private Collection.

This iconic image is a very early painting by Koen van den Broek, based on a photograph he made during his first visit to New York City from the Brooklyn Bridge. In this picture, the artist refers to art history and, in particular, to the work of the German photographer August Sander. In showing the tall twin towers only partly, he manages to show a condensed version of them. A tribute to August Sanders' portrait of two unsuspecting people of normal height, who, merely by giving them a false perspective, he reduced to two dwarfs. Van den Broek borrowed the sober colour choice from the minimalism of Donald Judd, for which the artist has great admiration. Of course, this work is also a degree of adoration for the architecture and the symbolic value of the towers. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui chose this work because of the even greater symbolic importance after 9/11, as production image for West, a programme of works by three American choreographers. The work Twin Towers is part of Elton John’s art collection.