1987 – glass
The island, located at the center of the large lake in the Celle park, is the site Kosuth chose for his first permanent outdoor installation. Visitors dock the boat on the island and walk along the narrow pathways that lead them to the nineteenth-century tempietto containing a Venus figure, carved in Carrara marble and surrounded by stone benches. However, it is impossible to reach the structure because the artist has divided the island into two parts by means of a two-meter high glass wall. On the transparent surface are inscribed (in English and Italian) these words by Nietzche: “The things themselves, which only the limited brains of men and animals believed fixed and stationary, have no real existence at all. They are the flashing and sparks of drawn swords, the glow of victory in the conflict of opposing qualities.”
The work is completed with topographical drawings etched on the glass wall, which should be understood with the words as the key to reading the unreachable tempietto.
