Obliteration (Make it Pop)

Conceived at large scale specially for Noor Riyadh, Obliteration is made up of a long neon tube that is bent and overlapped to resemble a hastily drawn line. Reminiscent of Abstract Expressionist gestures, the work holds a contradiction between the stiffness of the neon and the apparent spontaneity of a scribble. Placed on a wall, drawn from the vocabulary of graffiti, and in the manner of a deleted slogan, the luminous scratched lines suggest the presence of content that lies beneath them, concealed. This implied erasure reflects the pulse of society and its constant writing, rewriting, and overwriting. Like a metaphor for today’s digital era, the overlapping tubes hint at the ways of receiving and commenting information in a world which sees new content being produced and diffused every microsecond. In the manner of a palimpsest, Stefan Brüggemann’s large neon abstract work acts as a reminder of what remains hidden and covered, and of the consequent cancelling out of content in the face of its overabundance. Brüggemann’s work demands that its viewers contemplate and reflect on today’s ways of digesting layers of information.

Obliteration (Make it Pop), 2023 ©Stefan Brüggemann
Commissioned by RCRC and Riyadh Art