Gertrude Moser Wagner: Counterplot

intervention in space / installation
prelature

"Space: prelature, staircase, two niches in front of each other, one with sculpture, one empty.
First niche: woman sculpture with book in her hand (inventura index:
The Sculpture of Woman, life size, drapery dress in left hand holding the book; white marble, sculpture, 193 cm high with base, artist: G. Duprā; 1853, right hand missing, number PY 870)

Second niche in sign language – the language of the mute – there is writen the word COUNTERPLOT. The word consists of eleven hand gestures. Each of them has been copied on a transparent sheet. Superimposed they create a picture, as well as a word.
The intervention consists of the found situation, enlarged by three elements:
1. Markings: white colour to mark a certain installation – area within existing scaffolding – working stage and installation of two lights.
2. Indications: Two indications referring to object and intervention: inventura-index of the sculpture. Title as sign-language transformed in conventional letters.
3. Intervention: the picture as the word as the attitude"

Gertrude Moser Wagner, 1994

"I made a short perfomance together with Michael Delia who played live, sitting somewhere on the scaffold above. We had a time table with play and break, maybe every minute, I don't remember exactly. When it was quiet above, I started to write and/or erase on a sheet of paper, and when he was playing I was quiet."

Gertrude Moser Wagner, 2017

Supported by Kultur Kontakt Wien.


Gertrude Moser Wagner (born 1953 in St.Georgen/Murau, Austria) lives and works in Vienna as a free-lance artist. She studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, with professor Bruno Gironcoli. Adjunct Professor at Webster University, Vienna (1999-2009). Studios abroad include Rome (1994) and Kraków (1997). She was Artist in Residence at UMAS, Durham, Ontario (2000), and had a BMUKK pilot-project on "Mentoring of Women by Women in the Arts“ (2011). Fields of Artistic Endeavour: concept, sculpture, video. Since 1979, she has had exhibitions and projects; since 1983 she has made video; since 1985 she has made art in public spaces, interventions, symposia, communication projects, texts. She cooperates with various artists and scientists from other disciplines.