Exhibition view Jungle was Yesterday, 2009 / Prima Kunst Container / Installation from a monkey skeleton, a transport box and mirror / Dimensions: 80 x 140 x 38 cm

In the artistic work of Katinka Theis leads the question of the origin of form had lead to an examination of the idealistic backgrounds of spatial relationships. Under which natural or cultural influence did a form emerge and how does its background change over time? The perspective can relate to an urban form as well as to an everyday object. The installation Jungle was Yesterday was created from the transport box of a monkey skeleton, which shows the viewer a complex game of possible development processes. Fixed by the empty eye sockets of the monkey skeleton, the viewer sees his distorted reflection in the monkey’s former dwelling, which, like modern architecture, is now lined with a polygonal broken mirror surface. Not only the viewer and the monkey face each other here, but also the natural forms of the skeleton and the plastic shape of the box suggest a developmental process that leaves the sequence in which they were created open.