HANDLING INSTRUCTIONS

If there is one object of which you really need to read the handling instructions very carefully it is land mines. When you are making your dummy land mines out of porcelain that doesn't change very much. Whether it is charged with explosives or made out of fragile ceramics, you don't want to drop it.

Ulrik Holme Kristensen (Denmark/Netherlands) has created a few cases of such anti-personnel and anti-tank mines. The mines are kept safely in their boxes: you don't want the visitor feel like an elephant in a china shop!

Ulrik Holme Kristensen, 'Porcelain Minefield (detail)' (2007)

Ulrik Holme Kristensen, 'Porcelain Minefield' (2007)

Ulrik Holme Kristensen, 'Porcelain Minefield (detail)' (2007)

PACKING MATERIALS

The sheer banality of packing materials can result in extremely beautiful objects.
Every artist who has just finished packing his sculpture or painting for transport has once or twice looked back satisfied at the aesthetic result.

The German painter Jochen Mühlenbrink made a series of 'packaging' paintings. Other series deal with themes like 'trucks', 'asphalt' or 'fires'. Most of these are oil on canvas or panel but some are 3-dimensional box shapes and others are composed of several hinged panels.

Wrap it up, I'll take it!

Jochen Mühlenbrink, 'Aus der Serie Pack' (2010)

Jochen Mühlenbrink, '7EK1L' (2011)

Jochen Mühlenbrink, 'IKE a' (2011)

Jochen Mühlenbrink, 'Mahlerkoffer' (2012)