4711 is the number that was assigned to the eau de cologne factory on the Glockengasse in Cologne, Germany, during the Napoleonic occupation and which then became a brand name, as if it were a perfume of the French Revolution.
Well, until just a few years ago the warehouse and distribution department of the cologne factory was across the street from my studio in Cologne, on Thebäerstrasse, and I salvaged debris from those stores. I had a load of planks and beams from the rubbish outside the warehouse so as to work them up into sculptures. I gave the security man there, a Pole, a small wooden bas-relief with the emblem of justice. In return he gave me a box of nails and a box of radial discs and let me take the wood. The basement where I kept the briquettes for the stove ended up full of planks and beams. The basement and the stoves gave off a sour damp smell which permeated our clothes, our cupboards, the whole house, and which we can still smell, even though we now have gas heating. Ten years have passed since I made that deal with my Polish friend, and last autumn (2001) I got four planks from the basement and cut them into pieces with a hacksaw. Then I put all of the bits back together and here they are, in this sculpture.
José María Guijarro
