“Spatiality” is the central subject in the works of Andrea Witzmann. She uses photography to research what space means, where it begins to take shape, and where it starts to dissipate, exploring the boundaries of inside and out, private and public, two- and three-dimensionality, the natural and the artificial.

The photo installation entitled fanbox was developed by Andrea Witzmann for the WIENER LINIEN (Vienna Transport) facilities building on Karlsplatz where she ironically engaged the spatial situation of the square and of the built object she worked with. The building skin – readable as a White Cube turned inside out – was used here to captivate the gaze. The fanbox had a display of ventilation units on the outside of the building, a playful suggestion of the technology which, hidden inside or underneath, provides for the air conditioning of the subway station and underground passageways: fans everywhere, in different sizes, shapes, and colors, embedded in scenes of reduced carelessness or a stringent sense of order. With her very specific positioning of the picture spaces, Andrea Witzmann related to whichever side of the extensive square they were facing. Without using indexical motifs, her work conveyed with all the more intensity the sensed atmosphere through props that were interspersed in a seemingly casual way: fans, means of traffic, and plastic chairs. On a closer look, a number of hidden hints to conceivable real locations could be discovered in the applied picture wallpaper. With ist wide expanse and a topography punctuated by many different needs and necessities, its visible traffic flows, and ist subterranean bundles of infrastructure, the square served as a hinge, a revolving stage. Placing her fanbox right in the center of the flow, the motion, and the transitoriness on Karlsplatz, Andrea Witzman provided a place for a halfway stopover, a break on the way, a rest.

Text: Ulrike Sladek