Art Installation - Interior Design
2016 ongoing
Artist: Friedrich Biedermann
Client: KITEO GmbH, ViennaLocation: Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Vienna, Budapest,
Project in cooperation with artist Friedrich Biedermann and company Kiteo.
Dimensions: 250x620x236 cm (inside truck's loading space)
Keep on Trucking!
Friedrich Biedermann’s Light Path 2016
Light and space have always taken center stage in the work of the artist Friedrich Biedermann. Concepts like representation, communication and performance are inscribed into all of his pieces, which explore these concepts with respect to the viewers‘ perception.
The light installation Light Path (2016) is built into a truck’s loading space. When the loading ramp is down, the public is invited to enter the installation. Viewed frontally, the container resembles a camera’s aperture – a reference to human perception and the production of images. LEDs that are hidden from view imitate natural light with its day-night-rhythm, only that here it is compressed into a single minute. The aura of the space is thus in constant flux according to whether the light at a given moment is dim, harsh or soft. Biedermannn also wrote a score that was developed by the Austrian band Sofa Surfers into a piece which accoustically parallels the ebb-and-flow of the light.
The truck may stop anywhere: at highly frequented spots in urban space, but also in ‚non-places‘ such as parking lots or road houses. Biedermann’s approach to art is a democratic one. His aim is to get everybody interested in art – including, that is, those who normally have no truck with art at all. The piece does not play along the rules of the conventional exhibition circuit, where a show usually starts with the choice of a curator and people outside the confines of the art world are simply not taken account of. This work aims to reach a wide audience that does not necessarily have any affinity with art. Since the truck can stop at any time of the day or night, the temporal conventions of the art world (e.g. opening hours) are negated as well. And the same goes for the natural parameters that usually restrict the freedom of the artist who works with light in public space. Whereas normally the cyclical day-night-rhythm determines how intensely the work is perceived at a given moment, Light Path has found an elegant way of wriggling out of these shackles in that a) it can be shown anytime and b) it carries with it its own space of representation.
Another interesting aspect of the work is the contrast between the truck’s impressive bulk on the one, and the ephemeral nature of what’s inside on the other hand. The truck’s sheer size and the huge lettering on its side work like a sort of camouflage for the tender light in its interior, so conducive to contemplation. Light Path is a work that is finally defined by the light of its surroundings – and vice versa. But even here there is an element of deception involved, in that Light Path confronts us with a nature that has become technology.