Kieran Boland

A little girl wearing a red bicycle helmet knocks upon Franz West's pink tombstone in the Zentralfriedhof Cemetery of Vienna as though it was a door. The child's discovery of the acoustic properties of the hollow lacquered aluminum ensures that attention is drawn to the artist's grave over the many other illustrious figures surrounding it. As an infinite loop, the video suggests that the echoing noise generated by this repeated action may eventually wake the artist from his place of final rest—making the sculpture's role as a tombstone redundant.

This work is part of a recurring series of video and sound projects produced at sites around the world that creatively engage with memorials for the deceased to question their meaning in contemporary culture. Other examples include Strawberry Field Recording (2006), Death Scene Coach (2013), Little Poet Thomas (2017) and Backyard Psycho (2018).