On my mind now is cat-sitting, watering flowers, taking pictures of strangers that are buying the furniture of a friend that has decided to leave this town for a while, visiting C, buying with him furniture. Looks like this summer some people are selling furniture and others are acquiring.
Meanwhile, August is slowly coming to its end. The moment that I realize it, is meanwhile I sit with C next to the waterfront of the Danube. The wind and the sky show signals that summer is going to end soon. I have been very few times swimming this year, but as it hasn’t been in a real sea, so I do not have the complete feeling of summer or summers that I have been used to. Maybe, I should get used to the fact that summers might look differently, there cannot be a forever repetition of things that I used to do.
I do not know why I have been going in so few exhibitions during these last months, even though galleries have since long re-opened. This night I take an underground ride, the U6. For some time, I was disliking to use it, but now, I somehow evaluate the fact that this is the only line in Vienna that is mostly going above the ground-city arch. I wear a mask, that takes a bit of my breath, but at the same time something beautiful is happening – my pupils are widening.
On arrival at the gallery, I read the full title of the exhibition for the first time A POOL FULL OF YELLOW.
So, it is indicating that this pool is of another color, meanwhile most of us are used to pools in different variations of blue. I get unsure if this is just personal knowledge or a collective and then I start to google „colors for swimming pools“, and this is what Google suggests: Different blues and greens that are called Quartz, Pacific, Pearl, Jade, Beach, Sapphire, Atlantic. But artists are dreamers, they dream in different colors.
Austrian Artist Petra Gell, 
Austrian Artist Petra Gell, 
Austrian Artist Petra Gell, 
Austrian Artist Petra Gell, 
Austrian Artist Petra Gell, 
Austrian Artist Petra Gell,
The exhibition is in an art space that is called basement. I call it Bazament, because where I come from is also a gallery with this same name. It is nice to search for the entrance, not located directly outside of Grundsteingasse 8. You have to go through two different yards, in the second one on the left side there is a small table that serves drinks, and on each of these glasses is written the first letter of the person that is drinking it. Mine has an E. When I am leaving the exhibition space I see a couple of vice versa turned glasses. All of them have the letter of that person that decided to not drink anymore for this evening or that has already left.
People today take their time. Even the artists, the curator and the lady of the Verein 9 „Arabesken“.
Inside the space, you can see the processive/empirical dialogue between the German artist Franziska Degendorfer and the Austrian Artist Petra Gell, curated by Katharina Wendler. It can be really called a good led dialogue. Paintings & collages of Degendorfer meet soft installation practices of Gell. There are many happy colors, but nothing makes you tired. Geometry, expressed among other materials, with grids and blinds stimulates order. The collages and paintings made on cardboard, and textiles give you the pleasure of tearing them softly up for seeing what it is behind. The pea’s color blinds make you want to stay there forever.
Do not forget to take with you a printed copy of their Skype conversation. By reading those 6 pages, you have a feeling of co-being in three different cities, Vienna, Karlsruhe and Berlin, and if you read carefully you might encounter also some interesting reading tips.
*The sound work emerged after the exhibition. I discussed ‚A pool full of yellow‘ with Cornelius. I articulated my feelings, narrated about the pool, the exhibition design, the grids, sending him along also the sound of my clogs as I walked into the exhibition. Cornelius Wildner responded with this 302-second aural work, and this is where our series on bringing exhibitions sound-wise closer begins.
Exhibition: A pool full of yellow
Exhibition Duration: Till the 13.th of September.
ADDRESS:
Grundsteingasse 8, Top 34-35, Hof 2, 1160 Wien
Cornelius Wildner (*1970) is a Vienna-based sound artist and music technologist. He deals with ephemeral sounds, field recordings, archiving, live performance, analog and digital synthesis. At the same time, he collaborates with artists from different genres.
About the Interviewer: Erka Shalari (*1988, Tirana) is a Vienna-based art author. She focuses on discovering unique artistic positions, unconventional exhibition spaces, and galleries that have deliberately broken new ground in their working methods. In this regard, she relies on unorthodox publishing practices, coupling these with a nonchalant manner of writing. The work oscillates between articles for magazines, exhibition texts and press releases.
