Skulpturenpark Köln

The cigarette-shaped chimney or cylindrical tube serves as a monument or memorial, as a warning to future civilisations, to quote Torsten Slama (b. 1967 in Schwarzach, Austria) himself. The gorilla guarding the monument shares many characteristics with the cigarette. Just as the latter will never be able to divest itself of its toxicity, the former will never master his own base urges. The sculpture is based on a drawing Vision 6: Der Herbert-Bayer-Cigarettenkiosk (The Herbert-Bayer-Cigarette Store) from the cycle Illustrierte Visionen der Zukunft für die Erhaltung von Monumenten, der Erinnerung an die Menschheit gewidmet (Illustrated Visions of the Future for the Preservation of Monuments, Dedicated to the Memory of Humankind). Depicted is a building which by virtue of the fact that it has survived a nameless catastrophe, serves future generations of animals as a memorial to the downfall of human civilisation. This was based on a design by Herbert Bayer from 1924. A teacher at the Bauhaus Dessau at the time, he embodied the blossoming of a civilisation which rejected the notion that there could be a surplus of education, progress, pleasure and energy consumption. The work Herbert-Bayer-Zigarettenkiosk/Atomskulptur is a monument to the concept of abundance in the sense of the cigarette metaphor.