Kulturzentrum Eisenstadt, 2012
Open competition: “Raum-Poesie”, Kulturzentrum Eisenstadt, 2012
(in collaboration with architect Willi Frötscher)
An image panel set off from the wall with a round bracket constitutes the image space, extending over two floors and reacting to the function of the staircase, that links several levels of the building. A particular challenge is the existing fresco by Peter Pongratz with its intense colours in the foyer of the first floor. Maria Hahnenkamp and Willi Frötscher opt for a white background, that stands out from the delicate grey of the staircase, and a painted ornamental pattern of lines in dark grey. The ornaments, as always with Maria Hahnenkamp, are taken from a book of patterns from 1860 and were digitally drawn and edited. Sweeping strips of writing weave together with the abstract plant forms. For this staircase design, Maria Hahnenkamp – who recurrently incorporates theoretical, philosophical and literary texts into her works – uses quotations from the book “The Poetics of Space” (mostly from the chapter entitled “Corners”) by Gaston Bachelard, and interviews with the artists Lawrence Weiner and Olaf Nicolai. One quotation of Gaston Bachelard, for example, reads: “To go upstairs in the word house is to dream, it is losing oneself in the distant corridors of an obscure etymology, looking for treasures that cannot be found in words.”
Eva Maltrovsky
Eva Maltrovsky, Mag. Dr., b. 1959 – lives in Eisenstadt and Vienna, studied German Studies and Theology, several semesters of Art History, PhD on Language-Image-Texts in Visual Arts. University professor, long-standing teaching assignments at Vienna University, curator and author on 20th and 21st century visual arts. Publication: Die Lust am Text in der bildenden Kunst, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, Vienna 2004.