Divided Power
Monumental spatial installation · 2017
- ArtistDavid Spriggs
- Date2017
- Dimensions3.2 × 3.2 × 3 m
10.5 × 10.5 × 10 ft - MaterialsPainted layered transparencies and metal framework
- ExhibitionBerlin Atonal
- LocationKraftwerk Berlin, Germany
A sphere appears to burst apart while remaining suspended in perfect outline.
Divided Power makes unity visible at the moment it fractures. The sphere, a longstanding symbol of wholeness, sovereignty, and centralised order, is assembled from sharp fragments and divided by a vertical interval. Its surface seems to be expanding under pressure.
From the principal viewpoint, the fragments gather into a dense and coherent body. From the side, that body collapses into transparent planes. Unity is revealed as an effect of alignment rather than a permanent condition.
The architecture of authority
The title brings several meanings into tension: the separation of powers, the distribution of force, and the internal division of authority. The work does not illustrate a political system. It gives instability a spatial form, holding concentration and dispersal within the same image.
Presented inside Kraftwerk Berlin, a former power station, the sculpture entered an architecture originally built to generate and distribute energy. The industrial space extended the work’s central question: whether power is located in a single body or exists through the structures that organise its movement.
Divided Power was first presented at Kraftwerk Berlin during Berlin Atonal in 2017.