UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CENTER TULLN

A site specific and permanent installation of various artworks in a new university building in Lower Austria near Vienna, the "Universitäts- und Forschungszentrum Tulln", opening in September 2011. In terms of content the site specific artwork is focused on the two main themes of the building. One is the cooperation between the "Austrian Institute of Technology" and the "University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna". Working together since many years, the two institutions share for the first time their scientific infrastructure in one center. The teamwork was the main inspiration for the large format painting "job ladder" and the "take-away-sculpture". Another key aspect of the artwork is on the environmental issues of the research center and the methodology of science and its investigation and study. This is to be found in an ink drawing with watercolor consisting of three parts. A video documentation by Gabriel Goldgrien Pictures can be found on Youtube, see the video here or follow this link: www.youtube.com/goldgrien.

The painting "menschenleiter (job ladder)" is hung opposite a panorama elevator with glass fronts. Its 10.5 meters length spread over three floors and can only be fully seen in its details using the elevator. The passive movement of the spectator's body there corresponds with the vertical movement of this black and white drawing and raises questions about one's own position in this hierarchical system. The organical forms of the bodies face the geometric pattern of the bricks and create an action, seen while moving up and down.

Sketch

Installation view

Installation view

Installation view

 

The bricks in the hands of the the painting's figures can be found modeled into a "take-away-sculpture", consisting of 400 ceramic parts. The handmade bricks are numbered and signed (ed. 400 + 10 AP), made of ceramics with black glaze, stapled on a solid wooden pallet. The scientists working in the research center get a certificate, which allows them to take away one part of the sculpture. The public installation will disappear and the object spreads over the whole building, it gets privatized. In the more intimate atmosphere of an office or laboratory it remains in its single parts which recall the idea of collaboration.

Single parts

Installation view

Detail

Detail

 

The drawing "lost in translation" bears in its center the figure of a painter/scientist, looking over his shoulder we see him interpreting the black and white lines of a kind of natural background into a watercolor drawing, like creating something new on the basis of an existing citation. On the left side the renewable primary products are fondly taken care of, while on the right side the raw harvesting process can be seen. All together the equilibrium of the scenes lies in the translation and abstraction process on the easel and the ongoing process of interpretation, balancing the composition in every moment.

Installation view

Left part

Middle part

Right part

 

A letter press printed certificate comes with every piece of the edition. A sketch explains the removal procedure of the sculpture and this documentation will remain after the bricks have vanished, the empty pallet will lean against the wall in front of it. The object was industrially wrapped in before the opening ceremony, to prevent it from disappearing too early.

Certificate for edition number

Documentation sketch

Wrapped in

Sculpture, top view

 

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