With her light intervention at the Heldentor and Michaelertor gates, Victoria Coeln created a striking new space for remembrance and reflection. These two gates of Vienna’s former imperial palace embody a key tension of our time: they can be freely traversed by people—or closed off at any moment.
DYSTOPIA EUTOPIA confronted all who passed through with the fragility of the present. The two principal elements of Coeln’s precisely composed light installation were grids and barbed wire. The iconography of barbed wire is overwhelmingly negative. In the context of current political events, associations with fences, barriers, and exclusion come immediately to mind. Originally designed to contain livestock, barbed wire has become a symbol of the boundaries imposed by inhumane regimes. Native Americans once called these twisted, sharp wires “devil’s rope.”
The grid, a recurring motif in art and often an autonomous visual theme, stands for uniformity, order, and impersonality. It is an anti-hierarchical system or, as Sigmar Polke described it, “a method, a structure” that “breaks things down, scatters, organizes.” Yet the grid also offers the possibility of disruption—of irritation—when its structure is broken or deviated from.
In DYSTOPIA EUTOPIA, the disruption of this systematic order was tantamount to breaking a rigid logic. The activation or breaking of the grid can be read as a social critique: How rigid—or how open—is our society? Where do we draw our own boundaries, and where do we expand our space? Where are borders and spaces crossed? Who decides for those who are decided for?
For this intervention, Victoria Coeln chose a site central to Austrian history and rife with contradictions, making a powerful contribution to the contemporary political discourse. DYSTOPIA EUTOPIA was not only a visually arresting and intellectually provocative experience; it also transformed the "Kaiserforum" into a forum for public debate. The light intervention was a call to all members of society—a call to individual and collective responsibility.
DYSTOPIA EUTOPIA - Opening
Tuesday, 3 May 2016 / 19:30
With talks by
Reinhold Sahl, Burghauptmann of the Burghauptmannschaft Austria
Martina Taig, Managing Director KÖR GmbH
Heidemarie Uhl, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Victoria Coeln, Artist
Gerald Bast, Rector of the University of Applied Arts Vienna
Josef Ostermayer, Federal Minister of Art and Culture, Constitution and Media
Location: Looshaus, Michaelerplatz 3, 1010 Vienna