Brigitte Kowanz: Leuchten
Factsheet
Format: Light object
Location: 1010 Vienna, Rathausstraße 1, BUWOG Customer and Administrative Centre
Creation: 1997
Artist: Brigitte Kowanz (1957, Vienna – 2022, Vienna), www.kowanz.com
Info/Scope: Light installation with eight acrylic glass tubes and lacquer in vertical linear wall mounting. Leuchten / Lights is an early work in Brigitte Kowanz's cycle of Morse code light installations.
Dimensions: 141 x 62 x 9 (H x W x D)
Brigitte Kowanz: Leuchten / Lights
Biennale artist Brigitte Kowanz discovered the medium of light for herself in the 1980s and developed a significant artistic language on the basis of it. She makes use of its impulsive effect, investigates technical possibilities as well as the receptive effects on us humans and summarises its sensorial appearance in a radically purist formalism. Mounted on the wall in a strictly linear and vertical arrangement, the work’s blackened fluorescent tubes reveal imperfections and longer and shorter translucent recesses. What appears to be a pattern is the uniform code of the Morse alphabet with which Brigitte Kowanz writes “light words” in the room. Nothing is deciphered – the artist plays with our perception and responds to the bemusement and desire to understand with the simple beauty of the work.
Other works by internationally recognised artist Brigitte Kowanz in BUWOG’s art collection: R – ein Rechts-Knicken, L – ein Links-Knicken / R - A Bend to the Right, L - A Bend to the Left, 2001 and Morsealphabet / Morse Code, 1999.
