“A revue is a witty series of non-related scenes designed to satisfy the eye, the ear, and the intellect.” (Fritz Grünbaum)

Wendelin Pressl’s walk-on intervention REVUE encouraged people to linger and offered them room for leisure. The intervention worked on two different levels: as an architectural measure and example of urban development, the wooden construction doubled the staircase opposite. The mirroring of the surrounding space created new perspectives and established an additional axis within the extant structures.

Regarded as a grandstand, Pressl’s REVUE provided a space for self-presentation, yet at the same time staged the surroundings, the street and the rest of the square, charging the commonplace with meaning. Users of the grandstand experienced urban events as part of a mise-en-scène; ordinary activities turned into scenes.

Another potential was that for experiment: the grandstand reinterpreted as a stage invited social interaction. It encouraged people to become active – whether in the form of juggling, street music, or stimulating conversation.

The stage also presented itself as an affectionate homage to the Austrian satirist, actor, and compère Fritz Grünbaum, who gave the square its name. Grünbaum was born in Brno, Moravia in 1880 and died in the Dachau concentration camp on January 14, 1941. The construction stood for his oeuvre as a satirist and a reference to the famous “Doppelconference” (double act) which Fritz Grünbaum developed with Karl Farkas. The orientation of the grandstand toward the anti-aircraft tower served as a reminder of Fritz Grünbaum’s murder by the Nazis.

August 20, 2010, BUS<>WAVING ONE’S HAND . . . Monday Morning Hardcore Waving
People in groups waving their hands put some life into the grandstand on August 20 from 8 a.m. on. They had been asked to meet with friends and wave their hands at the passing 13A and 14 A buses.
Organization: Dominik Nostitz

September 5, 2010, Green Tree and Gray Noise
A REVUE revue about Fritz Grünbaum and Hermann Leopoldi by and with Alexander Kuchinka und Robert Kolar

October 15, 2010, Au revoir, REVUE!
Fritz Grünbaum-Platz, Wien-Mariahilf
“Der Dilettanten-Chor” started singing at 6 p.m.
Organization: Dominik Nostitz