Lucy McKenzie's Trompe L'oeil Installation at Galerie Buchholz Explores Corporate Realities

From November 20, 2015, to January 23, 2016, Lucy McKenzie presented an immersive installation at Galerie Buchholz in Berlin's Charlottenburg district. The Glaswegian artist transformed a Wilhelmine apartment on Fasanenstrasse with meticulous trompe l'oeil techniques, creating simulated office and domestic spaces that critique capitalist environments. McKenzie's works include the Quodlibet series featuring painted tax returns and Royal Bank of Scotland correspondence, a large map of Holland with coats of arms, and a depiction of the Dutch East Indies with a sailor and cannon. Other elements include a faux-marble desk with painted coffee cup and iPhone, a seashell-shaped lamp referencing Victor Horta, a spare bedroom with Virgin Mary portrait, and a bathroom rendered as a single canvas with Oskar Schlemmer-like linearity. The artist honed her craft at an artisanal school in Brussels known for white work-coats and deferential attitudes. The installation's title references an atlas of leprosy, potentially connecting to Indonesia's estimated 16,000 annual new cases as a consequence of Western exploitation. Unlike Mike Nelson's or Gregor Schneider's ominous environments, McKenzie's work displays technical perfection that challenges notions of artistic progress. A torn carpet at the staircase exit provides a final physical disruption in this carefully constructed illusion.