STADTBAD
A series of photographs, 40 x 90 cm each, taken in a public swimming pool in Berlin, Germany, in 2010.
Life and death. Transience. The fleetingness of time. These considerations seem to be the preoccupations of Norbert Attard in this photographic triptych. The artist’s exploratory forays into the now deserted and defunct Stadtbad also stem from his architectural background. Attard is an architect by profession. The modular construction of the work itself is again a reference to Attard’s architectural calling and also echoes the extensive tiling inside Stadtbad. This adds to the homogeneity of the work. Each panel of this photographic triptych is a composite of different images which are placed in a way as to narrate the artist’s message. At the top of the first panel, in solid black bold sans serif text typical of German solidity and authority, is the word VERWALTUNG, meaning Management/Administration. This provides a vivid flashback to when this place was once a regenerating, relaxing and fun environment but now is nothing more than a cold, bare labyrinth, where the silent pump room, like a heart that has stopped beating, no longer pumps the life-giving water through the shrivelled veins and arteries.