Room orange

Ein Text von Josef Guggenberger

text by Joseph Guggenberger

“Room Orange” is an accessible room whose floor, ceiling and interior walls are completely lined with wax. In the room, which is 2.07 meters high, 2.07 meters wide and 2.40 meters deep, visitors can move around and at the same time touch the approximately 5 centimeter thick layer of wax on the ceiling, walls and floor with their hands .

The room is based on the principle of change and transformation: In the beginning the interior wax walls are even but during the exhibition the walls surface is changing in different ways due to the visitors who touch and mold the wax. The metamorphosis of the room originates entirely from the viewer and not from the artist: the choice of malleable material merely creates the conditions for the constant change in the spatial situation – the latent possibilities of tansformation by the viewer outweighs the actual visible influences of the artist.

The recipients active participation and the resulting sensual experience are supported by the room´s light setting: The visitor is entering a haven of warm orange which is only illuminated by the daylight that falls through the narrow entrance slit. The resulting soft color gradient from strong orange to earthy red creates a relaxed atmosphere that invites you to linger. Shielded and undisturbed from the outside, you have the opportunity to experience the structure and consistency of the familiar-looking material with your own hands and feet, and thus to leave your own traces on the surface of the object.

The waxen interior registers each impact because of the visitors body warmth and is thus like a document to the visitor which tells him about his predecessors. The walls become a snapshot of a process with an indefinite ending.

Back