With her anagrams, Natalie Deewan brings a subtle linguistic wit to urban space. She transforms the meaning of inscriptions by transferring letters or syllables within a word into a new, meaningful word. Her latest coup: The letters of a former "PARFUMERIE" in Favoritenstraße become "PERMAFURIE" on the façade of Mz* Baltazar's Laboratory at Jägerstraße.
Since 2017, Natalie Deewan has been realizing the series of Wiener Leerstandanagramme in the urban space. For this, the artist tracks down letters left behind on building façades in order to free them from their mostly commercial statements. Through an anagrammatic rearrangement of the letters, new meanings emerge: For example, the artist transformed the inscription "CAFE RESTAURANT" of the former Hotel Karolinenhof in Floridsdorf into "TRUE FACTS ARENA" (2021) and attached the letters to the abandoned signal box house at the Siemensstraße S-Bahn station.
Now an eleventh anagram is added with "PERMAFURIE" in the 20th district: In Roman mythology, "Furie" (fury) denotes a raging and furious goddess of vengeance, who in Natalie Deewan's reinterpretation permanently spreads fear and terror. The artist finds occasions for persistent rage in social issues and combines them with a feminist-ironic approach. The installation site of "PERMAFURIE" is itself a former perfumery and has been home to a feminist artists' collective since 2020.
Accompanying the installation on the façade, the Anagrammatische Stammtisch takes place in Mz* Baltazar's Laboratory, where the public can try their hand at the façade game and practice the art of anagramming themselves in several workshops with 36 game sets.
Location
Mz* Baltazar’s Laboratory, Jägerstraße 52-54, 1200 Vienna
Gallery
Further Information
Natalie Deewan *1978 in Vienna (A), lives in Vienna (A)
Time Period
June 12, 2023 until May/February 2025
In cooperation with Mz* Baltazar’s Laboratory.
Education - Events
- Workshop #1 Monday, June 12, 2023 / from 12:00 PM to 03:00 PM
- Opening Friday, June 16, 2023 / at 07:00 PM
- Workshop #2 Saturday, June 17, 2023 / from 02:00 PM to 05:00 PM
- Workshop #3 Monday, June 19, 2023 / from 02:00 PM to 05:00 PM
- Workshop #4 Tuesday, June 20, 2023 / from 11:00 AM to 02:00 PM
- Workshop #5 Tuesday, June 27, 2023 / from 03:00 PM to 06:00 PM