2024

auf Anfrage zugänglich

Grund- und Mittelschule an der Rockefellerstraße 11, 80937 München

Schüttloch 1 (Rockefellerstraße): Bronze, gebürstet, 150 l x 143 h x 120 t cm / Schüttloch 2 (Rockefellerstraße): Bronze, gebürstet, 228 l x 100 h x 120 t cm / Schüttloch 3 (Rockefellerstraße): Bronze, gebürstet, 210 l x 130 h x 105 t cm

Architecture: Krug Grossmann Architekten, München

Landscape architecture: Hackl Hofmann Landschaftsarchitekten, Eichstätt

Photos: Studio Olaf Becker & Ulrich Gebert

Text: Ursula Pokorny

Within the context of an art in public space project, Austrian artist Angelika Loderer has designed three new sculptures for the inner courtyard of the primary and secondary school on Rockefellerstrasse. The bronze sculptures, which are part of “the Schüttlöcher” (‘debris holes’) series, recall the ‘towns’—vast underground burrows—of North American prairie dogs. The works explore the coexistence of humans and other living creatures, both above and below ground.

For “Schüttlöcher”, the artist makes casts of abandoned underground burrows, or dwellings, using a classic sculpture technique that is also used in industry to render the organic structures of the burrows tangible. By recreating the hollow pathways in bronze, the artist reverses their physical state:  as a positive impression, they are solid and rigid. “Schüttlöcher” represent fragments of a parallel underworld hidden from human view. In the school’s courtyard, however, these subterranean burrows protrude from tree clusters as material objects.

To better understand the behavior of prairie dogs and their colonies, Loderer works closely with biologists. The animals live communally in networks of branched tunnels deep underground forming entire towns often covering vast areas. Because of how the animals dig, the tunnels are closely adapted to their bodies and form shells around them, almost as if they were a seal. The spaces refer to both the presence and absence of the living creatures. This fragile moment is captured in cast fragments. The results of the technical process, however, cannot be fully controlled. In the shift from negative to positive, surface details are lost, especially when the organic material  in question is earth. Thus, each cast of  the burrows is slightly different and requires an engagement with the original object, the body and its environment, often from an unusual perspective.

At a time when the man-made climate crisis is leading to massive social conflicts, it is necessary to examine one’s own attitude towards the earth. Our ideas and expectations of its usage often differ fundamentally. Depending on whether we view the earth from an ecological, economic, political or cultural perspective, viewpoints can be completely contradictory. With her works, Loderer draws attention to the space between these perspectives, to a space where it is clear that our actions are not to be understood in isolation from one another, but in exchange with one another.