OK | HÖHENRAUSCH.2
Bridges in the Sky
12 May–16 October 2011
Curatorial Team:
Genoveva Rückert, Julia Stoff, Martin Sturm,
Rainer Zendron
OK Platz 1;
4020 Linz, Austria
T +43.732.784178
office [at] ok-centrum.at
The OK “Offenes Kulturhaus” and partners set a new milestone again with HÖHENRAUSCH.2 (Thrill of the Heights). In addition to the exhibition center in the OK and on the roofs of the city center, a broad network of partners is involved in the conceptualization and realization of this major project.
A total of 46 art projects have been realized, some of them site-specific new productions. The art works center around the emotional experience quality of artistic nature events: the exhibition stages the phenomena of “air” and “water” in an urban environment. Atmospherically tuned installations create spaces of artistic experience along the course of the exhibition.
To begin with, Žilvinas Kempinas uses ventilators to make magnetic tapes fly; alongside this, Rúrí’s 52 Icelandic waterfalls rush as a sound and photo archive. One floor above, Stefan Banz covers the parquet floor of the Large Hall of the OK with real water, thus irritating perception.
Before the passage to the outside, Lang/Baumann install an air-filled, cylindrical bubble pushing outward through an opening. On the roof Fujiko Nakaya transforms an unsightly car park deck into a mysterious, windy sea of mist with countless water jets. On a large open surface behind this, Jeppe Hein has built one of his spectacular interactive water pavilions.
Still further up, the flat roof of a shopping center dominated by ventilators becomes the exhibition space for Ursula Stalder’s systematically arranged finds from the Venice lagoon. In a bell tower made accessible through the bridges by Jürg Conzett, Wolfgang Dorninger creates “false” wind noises with the replica of a baroque wind machine (but only when it is operated by the visitors). Re-entering the OK, visitors are greeted by Eduardo Coimbra with a sky panorama of neon tubes. Before the passage into the former cloister building, the smoke machine by Pipilotti Rist generates beautiful, short-lived air bubbles. Pepi Maier’s spiral-shaped copper-tube ice sculpture floats in the attic of the Ursulinenhof, iced over by the moisture of the air and with the help of a cooling machine. Following a winding entry into the north tower, visitors finally reach the large attic of the Ursuline church. There Gisela Motta and Leandro Lima provide an ethereal blue hour with a hydrau ulic neon wave. The last exhibition location leads into the nave of the church, which Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller transform into a four-part air-sound-space with a prominent council of loudspeakers.
Laurien BACHMANN, Stefan BANZ, Erdal BULDUN, BOW-WOW, Janet CARDIFF, Eduardo COIMBRA, Jürg CONZETT, Claudia CZIMEK, Gino DE DOMINICIS, Gerhard DIRMOSER, Wolfgang DORNINGER, Ronald DUARTE, Jack FALANGA, Ceal FLOYER, Gianfranco FOSCHINO, Dara FRIEDMAN, Shaun GLADWELL, Laura GLUSMAN, Shilpa GUPTA, HAUENSCHILD / RITTER, Jeppe HEIN, HUND & HORN, Zˇilvinas KEMPINAS, Mathias KESSLER, Isabelle KRIEG, Katharina LACKNER, William LAMSON, LANG / BAUMANN, Pepi MAIER, Angelika MIDDENDORF, Vik MUNIZ, Gisela MOTTA / Leandro LIMA, Fujiko NAKAYA, Yoko ONO, Steve POLESKIE, Werner REITERER, Pipilotti RIST, RÚRÍ, Michael SAILSTORFER, Eva SCHLEGEL, SERVAAS, ROMAN SIGNER, Ursula STALDER
The project has been supported within the framework of the Program for Regional Competitive Ability Upper Austria 2007–2013 by funding from the European Fund for Regional Development and funding from the Federal Province of Upper Austria.
