HDL is a sculptural-drawing work that engages with the Haus des Lehrers (House of the Teacher) at Berlin's Alexanderplatz and its visual-political design. The starting point is the façade mosaic “Unser Leben” (Our Life) by Walter Womacka, created for the building in the 1960s. Its serial image structure, figurative typologies, as well as normative motifs and formal orders form the raw material for the piece.

Hartenstein deconstructs these segments and translates them into a queer future perspective. HDL transfers the motifs and compositional principles of the mosaic into linear metal drawings on concrete, held together by soldered joints. The line acts as both a constructive and fluid element, simultaneously supporting and destabilising. The work investigates how societal order is organised through monumental public artworks and how reduction, displacement, and material shifts open up new interpretations of art in architecture.

Constantin Hartenstein is a Berlin-based artist working at the intersection of technology, queerness, and the human body. He studied at the Braunschweig University of Art (HBK) and the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). Hartenstein’s work spans sculpture, drawings, prints, performances, and multimedia installations, reflecting on post-digital materiality and speculative futures. His practice critically examines societal norms, identity, and the commercialization of queer aesthetics. With a strongly material-based approach, he integrates translucent materials, synthetic substances, and coded pigments to craft visionary utopias that merge historical narratives with contemporary technology.

Hartenstein’s works have been exhibited internationally, such as at Nationalgalerie Berlin, Gothenburg Biennale, Berghain/Studio Berlin/Boros Collection, Berlinische Galerie, Museum of the Moving Image in New York, and the Goethe Institute in Beijing.

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