“Lost Limits” by Anne Glassner and Marit Wolters
Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion is an open architecture whose original concept is the single-family house. Its structure remained intentionally unfinished: the enclosing walls leave gaps in the envelope of the architecture. Thus, the house is always open to the outside. Views can penetrate, hardly any corner invites privacy. In its basic structure, the Pavilion largely corresponds to that of the Villa Tugendhat: columns form the basic skeleton around which the walls fold as skins. In contrast to the Pavilion, however, the villa also offers space for privacy: the upper floor with its 5 separate bedrooms provides places of retreat and rest for the residents. These spaces are completely absent in the Pavilion, so that the architecture ultimately does not lend itself to privacy. On the contrary, it is entirely committed to the idea of representing new social ideas reflected in architecture. The private and the public, the indoors and the outdoors, architecture and nature melt into each other.
In the project “Lost Limits” artists Anne Glassner and Marit Wolters explore the possibilities of the merging of the multiple spheres in one space. The single-family house merges with the exhibited house, the museum-like.
Two performers move in patterns of action that are sometimes taken from being private or at home (like watering plants), sometimes from the exhibition context. They wear camouflage suits that let them optically merge with the architecture.
Sculptures made of aerated concrete are placed in the large water basin. These are repeatedly doused with water like houseplants.
Anne Glassner is a visual artist and performer based in Vienna. Her performances, videos, installations and drawings deal with intensive observations of recurring, everyday acts. The theme of sleep has been a central point of her artistic work for some time now, which she expresses, amongst other ways, through “sleep performances“, in which she allows others to observe her sleeping in unusual places. In her works she blurs the boundaries between art and life as well as fiction and reality, and she raises questions concerning self-perception and external perception as well as the intersections of the private and the public. 2023/24 she was awarded with the Scholarship VALIE EXPORT Center in Linz, 2021 with the recognition award of the province of Lower Austria for Fine Arts and 2018 with the MUSA price, Vienna.
Marit Wolters is a German sculptor. She works mainly with sculpture and installation. Her works have been shown internationally and she has been awarded several prizes, such as the Austrian State Scholarship and the Erste Bank Extra-Value Art Award. Marit Wolters’ pieces speak of presence: oftenephemeral constructions that are in constant dialogue with the place they occupy. Pieces that explore and recognize the potential of the material where abstraction finds other ways of expressing itself without losing the thread of history and the aesthetic potential of the material. Her works offer the possibility of establishing a dialogue that questions the identity of both the place and the viewer.
Exhibition produced in collaboration with Phileas – The Austrian Office for Contemporary Art, Bildrecht, Federal Ministry of Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport – Republic of Austria and Hangar | Centre de producció i recerca artística.
