With a wall design for the new municipal building in Laxenburger Strasse (architecture: Pichler & Traupmann Architekten), the City of Vienna is continuing its long tradition of art in (municipal) buildings. The artist Johanna Kandl won the competition organized by KÖR Wien together with WIGEBA, Wiener Gemeindewohnungs Baugesellschaft m.b.H..
With the design “Be a mensch”, the artist commemorates the work and legacy of Willi Resetarits (1948-2022). The quote stands for the musician and human rights activist, who knew better than almost anyone how to bring together the most diverse social and cultural groups. Borrowed from Yiddish into American English, the word “mensch” refers to a person of honesty and integrity.
Johanna Kandl takes up this appeal to humanity and the play with language as an expression of diversity and inclusion in her mural for the new municipal building at Laxenburger Straße 4/4A, which will be named after Willi Resetarits in the future. In 27 different languages, which are spoken particularly frequently in Vienna alongside German, the word “Mensch” is written on painted CDs and records on the façade. The round sound carriers against a blue background seem to float skywards. The bright and reduced color palette corresponds to a classical fresco. Kandl has repeatedly used this mural painting technique, which has a long tradition in Austria, for wall designs in the past. Her ceiling painting in the passageway to the courtyard is also reminiscent of baroque sky frescoes: the interplay of matt and glossy surfaces and the partly raised grooves of the vinyl panels create the impression of depth. Here, where for many years there was a record store, the records and CDs bear song titles from the musical work of Willi Resetarits in various band formations.
The choice of these storage media as a motif seems particularly apt for Kandl, who has long been intensively engaged with the history stored in painting materials and uses the chosen material specifically as a language. “What could be more important now than coming together, allowing different languages and language levels, approaching others?” (Johanna Kandl)
Location
Laxenburger Straße 4/4A, 1100 Vienna
Gallery
Further Information
Johanna Kandl * 1954 in Vienna (AUT), lives in Vienna and Berlin (GER)
Collaborators: Helmut Kandl, David Leitner, Michael Maly, Domenico Mühle, François Pisapia, Paul Riedmüller, Ali Samadi, Beate Schachinger
Time Period
Since Autumn 2024
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