A Kärcher That Spits Fire Like A Dragon (2026)

A Kaercher That Spits Fire Like a Dragon (2026)

Installation, Screenprinting color (Acryl) on Cotton Fitted Sheet, Mattress.

140 x 200 x 14cm

A mundane domestic object is depicted on a hanging mattress. The machine usually associated with maintenance and neutrality, is transformed into a force of destruction. What normally removes traces now produces them. 

In this shift, the object moves between the ordinary and the mythical: it occupies a strange position between earth and the divine: a tool of everyday order that suddenly acquires the power of a dragon. The gesture of maintenance becomes ambiguous. What is maintained, and what is to be destroyed?

The landscape behind the vacuum shows Athens and the Aegean Sea, a symbol of the birthplace of western philosophy, science, and democracy. 

Does in this contrast the Vacuum-Dragon represent the will to control the past, domesticate it, or guard it, while the fire suggests its destruction? Or does the fire-vacuum represent actual repair?, the possibility of rebirth? 

As the work is fed by a “real” dream of a vacuum cleaner spitting fire, a sort of loss of control while trying to domesticate something. The painting gains spaciality by becoming an installation as an object: a Spannbettlaken (fitted bedsheet) that supports the painting itself., putting in dialog something oniric, surreal, with care, preservation, and the risk of disappearance.

This work was presented for the exhibition "After The Mausoleaum" curated by Daniel Theiler & Constanza Carvajal in May 2026 at the project space Bodrum Berlin, as part of the program for Sellerie Weekend 2026.

With works from  Romain Blanck, Jakob Ketzel, Julieta Ortiz de Latierro, Lisa Peters, Marie Salcedo Horn, Daniel Theiler and Constanza Carvajal.

Credits