2004

öffentlich zugänglich

U-Bahnhof Olympia-Einkaufszentrum, Eingang Hanauer/ Pelkovenstraße, 80992 München

3 übereinander verlaufende Autobahnleitplanken, die 4 Stützpfeiler verbinden, im Zwischengeschoss, Länge 28 m, Höhe 1,05 m

Photos: Hermann Reichenwallner

Text: Ulrich Wilmes

Common guardrails of the type usually seen on our streets and highways comprise both the material and the theme that Olaf Metzel has interpreted in three variations so far. The two previous works were each created for an exhibition, one in Munich at the Kunstbau (art wing) of the Lenbachhaus, titled “Erst rechts, dann links, dann immer geradeaus”; then in Cologne, at the Museum für angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Arts), with the title “Gleich geht’s weiter”. In both installations Metzel looped two overlapping guard rails around the existing architecture’s supporting pillars. They formed a closed circuit, as it were, inverting their actual function as outdoor barriers.

Metzel adapted the motif of circular guard rails to refer to the different spatial and contextual situations created by each exhibition. In doing so, the Kunstbau—generally known to be located above a subway station—is a direct connection to the project, which is now a permanent installation at the Olympia Shopping Center Station.

The mezzanine of the train station there contains the main ticket counter, and passengers have to pass through it to reach the station platforms. Four round pillars comprise the hall’s architectural accents, which Metzel uses as the “base” for his sculpture. Three bands of guard rails placed on top of each other to a height of around three meters run for thirty meters around the top of the pillars. The “inverted” installation not only provides a disturbing moment for passengers on their way down to the station, but it also ensures that it can be seen from the platforms, as well. At the same time, it looks like a horizontal crossbar whose shape reflects the constantly moving stream of passengers. The rails are mounted high on top of the pillars, closer to the ceiling, and in combination with the lateral sections that overhang the outer pillars on either side, an impression of “floating lightness” is created, almost as if the three layers of guard rails could be shifted vertically up and down.

For Metzel, this hybrid concept of everyday objects and their usage is more than just attractive aestheticization; rather, it is one of the elementary principles behind his pictorial ideas. The material qualities, function, and the meaning derived from them are combined with the notion of a dialectical concept of the work, which links the autonomous form with a relationship to reality. The emblematic power of Erst rechts, dann links, dann immer geradeaus results—as it did in the earlier variations of this theme—from inverting a nearly omnipresent object that ironically comments on our society’s emotional connection to the fetish for mobility and speed the automobile inspires. This conveys Metzel’s intention of “also pointing out the change from the street to the rails” with his characteristic ambiguity.