Warten auf Vögel III (Waiting for Birds III) has been primarily conceived as an intervention into the “natural environment and lebensraum of Vienna,” which is essentially an urban space. In combination with the nesting boxes to be occupied by birds, the artificial character of the installation (red paint, geometrical architectural structure of the facility) suggests an ambivalent relationship between constructed matter and living nature, between logos and natura, which also reflects the (riven) relationship of our civilization to nature.
The installation Waiting for Birds III comprises 588 nesting boxes for birds on approximately two-meterhigh wooden poles painted in red and positioned at regular sixty-centimeter intervals in a square. As the title of the work indicates, it is to be expected that the nesting boxes (or part of them) will be used by birds (that nest in holes such as great tits, for example). Reality and fiction constitute a contrastive pair that finds its expression here and, in the context of urban space, may be associated with various designs and utopias of social and architectonic constructions. In implying a certain incalculability despite its structural layout, the spatial intervention is also suited to irritate its viewers, right along the lines of an “emotional experience in art.” In 2008, Waiting for Birds III was the largest installation in a series of similar projects in public space by the artist (such as Waiting for Birds I, Bad Sauerbrunn, 2004). The series is part of Josef Bernhardt’s longstanding investigation into the relationship between (urban) man and animal life, particularly bird life. Relying on a variety of artistic means, Bernhardt tries to open up as many and manifold views of the subject as possible, not without spicing its seriousness up with a pinch of humor.

Text: Lucas Gehrmann