A Feast For The Eyes

A STROLL THROUGH ART AND ARCHITECTURE IN DORNBIRN

WORDS Annette Raschner PHOTOS Benno Hagleitner

Works of art in public areas make contact directly with people. They stimulate discussions, sometimes they also may be exciting, and now and again they are irritating. They are never only stopgaps or a random feature, but in a specified architectural setting they make a strong design feature which cannot be overlooked. With just under 40 art and construction projects, Dornbirn has a quantitatively but also qualitatively remarkable spectrum of artworks in public areas. A short stroll to six extraordinary objects.

HANGING HOUSE, FLATZ

Here, one must look up! A wooden log construction house with a gabled roof is hanging upside down on several ropes. Is it even threatening to drop down and fall on your head? Topsy-turvy in the courtyard of the building, where children with special educational needs are taught. Like the children, the hanging house should in any event, be kept safe or be safely caught. At the same time, the artistic intervention is a symbol for exuberant creativity, for nature, leisure and play. Art extremist FLATZ knows how to bemuse, unsettle and provoke with his works. In the past, the versatile artist – performance artist, stage designer, musician and composer – posed naked as a living dartboard or let himself be hung on a rope as a bell-clapper.

Artist: FLATZ. Location: Special Education Centre, Schulgasse. Created in: 2011.

HANGING HOUSE, FLATZ

QUELLPYRAMIDE (WELL PYRAMID), Caroline Ramersdorfer

Water is flowing from a gaping granite pyramid. The water crosses the pedestrian zone in Dornbirn in a recess covered with stones. The recess is running wavelike, and the water is flowing under a bridge into a round basin. A particularly large number of children and families can be found here. They appear to love the dynamic and playful aspect of the artwork; its wave shape, the stones and the little walkways. The river course of the well pyramid forms the centre of the Europapassage. The art project

realised in 1989 is among the early works of the artist who was born in Lustenau, studied in France, Italy, Japan and the USA, and who has studios in New York and Feldkirch. It is meant to depict the Rappenloch Gorge with Lake Constance.

Artist: Caroline Ramersdorfer. Location: Europapassage. Created in: 1989.

QUELLPYRAMIDE (WELL PYRAMID), Caroline Ramersdorfer

“H” CUBE, Georg Malin

An open, “illuminated” steel cube is differentiating itself from the world and is partially standing only on three legs. The “Four”, which in terms of numerical symbols stands for everything called “world”, is gaining new significance in the sculpture due to the connection with the letter “H”. The cube shape unfolds a floating effect and becomes the anti-cube. The cube itself also features the letter “T” as a sign of God. Georg Malin, artist, historian and politician born in Mauren, Liechtenstein in 1926, views art in public areas as a “sign of spiritual use”, which makes reference to certain fundamental issues. Malin is a master of consistent abstraction of natural appearance. Squares, cubes and circles have already been integrated in objects of his early compositions. The symbolically charged letter cubes are located in sculpture gardens and private gardens in Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

Artist: Georg Malin. Location: Stadtgarten, Jangasse. Created in: 1989/90

“H” CUBE, Georg Malin

HOUSE OF THOUGHTS AND MEMORY, Gerold Tagwerker

What is it? A game? An ingenious puzzle? Fifty identical parts stacked as modules, form an open cube with an ornamental structure in the yard of the nursing home. The patterns of the side walls permit various views depending on the viewpoint; and the enclosed interior is also an open place of thought with changing perspectives. Gerold Tagwerker’s sculpture made of cement impermeable to water, metaphorically makes reference to the thinking, the remembrance, the passage of time and growing old. The object harmoniously fits in with the surroundings by picking up formal elements of the buildings. In the interior, which is not accessible, there is a water area with a bubbling centre. The artist from Feldkirch, living in Vienna, dealt with modern townscapes and their diverse reflections in the urban area.

Artist: Gerold Tagwerker. Location: Nursing Home Birkenwiese. Created in: 2013.

HOUSE OF THOUGHTS AND MEMORY, Gerold Tagwerker

FOUNTAIN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEOPOLDSTRASSE, Herbert Albrecht

In the school yard of the Elementary School at Leopoldstraße sits a strange, water dispensing limestone creature. The doyen among Vorarlberg’s sculptors, Herbert Albrecht, realised a fountain in 1967, which consists of differently shaped cubes. The artist, who lives and works in Wolfurt, loves stone as a material in all its forms and hardnesses. It is said that the stone compels us to stand and, through its harshness, defies the fast pace of our times. Herbert Albrecht has realised countless works for public areas. For the past sixty years, he has been interested in the nature man; standing, sitting and lying down. The sculptor, born in Au in Bregenzerwald, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and attended Fritz Wotruba’s master class during the 1950s. To this day, for him, the direct carving of stone is the most beautiful and most difficult work, full of high tension.

Artist: Herbert Albrecht. Location: Elementary School Leopoldstraße. Created in: 1967.

FOUNTAIN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEOPOLDSTRASSE, Herbert Albrecht

ZEIT UND REISE (TIME AND TRAVEL), Christoph and Markus Getzner

In 2007, the Getzner Brothers have artistically created two wall to wall backlit glass areas on the platform underpass, as a symbol of partings and reunions, anonymity and activity. The two-part work of art is displaying fairy-tale scenes providing a lot of room for personal interpretation. Since 2004, the artist duo, who grew up in Bludenz, have been working on a bizarre pictorial world of baroque settings with transience as a central theme. Space and time form work-immanent constants. The installation works were always carried out only after visiting and examining the area. After his comprehensive artistic training, Christoph Getzner is working as a stonemason, stone restorer and installation artist. Markus Getzner, former pupil of Arnulf Rainer and Bruno Gironcoli, is living as a Buddhist monk in Switzerland.

Artist: Christoph und Markus Getzner. Location: Train Station Dornbirn, Bahnhofstraße. Created in: 2007.

ZEIT UND REISE (TIME AND TRAVEL), Christoph and Markus Getzner