About

Rattke has always been fascinated by urban freeways. Growing up, he remembers the périphérique in Paris or the autobahn circling Frankfurt: tunnels, off-ramps, cars, concrete, silhouetted drivers, illuminated signs and billboards, toll booths, sound walls, interchanges, traffic. Grand, ugly entrances into a metropolis.

During the pandemic, the artist rode the Berlin Stadtautobahn frequently, sometimes just for the sake of it, as an escape. It represented a place and a moment in limbo, the constant traffic flow almost instantly opening a different state of mind for him. There, he felt the …