Installations at Franzensfeste Fortress

The Brixen Water Light Festival was already twice guest in the Franzensfeste Fortress 

In cooperation with Museion, 2023 works have been shown that deal with the themes of light and water in different ways. In the fortress, they were placed in a new context, took a stand individually and together generated a deeper engagement with the subject matter. 

Carré de Lumière projetée, (1990) France  

supported by MUSEION 

Verjux's light projection seeks a direct dialogue with the walls of the fortress. The artist is concerned with the pure presence of light, in this case reduced to the elementary geometric form of the square and projected onto a white surface. He himself speaks of an act of drawing with light. The aesthetics are in the foreground.  

Since the 1980s, Michael Verjux has been working with powerful lighting spotlights designed to outshine daylight and illuminate a surface on the wall, ceiling or floor of the exhibition space in the form of a circle or rectangle. It is important to the artist that his works are not mystically staged or shown in a darkened room, but in a space with a concrete use.  

Michel Verjux  - Biography:

Michael Verjux has participated in solo and collective exhibitions in museums and art institutions throughout Europe since the early 1980s and was represented at the renowned FIAC - international art fair in Paris. Among others, he participated in the International Biennale Light Art Ruhr, in the Light Show in Lugano 2010 and in the Light Art Festival in Stuttgart in 2016. His works are represented in private and public collections.  

In the video, women and men float side by side in the water with swimming hoops, first in close-up, then from ever greater distances. They observe each other, cast glances at each other, but avoid any active dialogue. They seem to be trapped in their own world, without anchor points. The video "Plantschen" (splashing) is the first major and important work by Christian Niccoli. The artist himself speaks of a universal and timeless visual language. He works strongly autobiographically and tries to translate feelings into a pictorial language.   

Christian Niccoli - Biography:

Christian Niccoli studied at the art academies in Vienna, at the Brera in Milan and in Florence.  More than 20 years ago, he moved to Berlin, where he still lives and works. 

In 2006 he was a scholarship holder of the Cittadellarte of the Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella, 2008-2009 of the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. His works are exhibited in international museums, are part of important contemporary art collections and his video films are repeatedly shown at various festivals. 

Cocept and direction: Christian Niccoli 

Camera: Andreas Steffan 

Camera Assistant: Andreas Hartmann 

Editing: Susanne Krauß 

Sound design: Roman Strack 

Compositing: Rudolph Germann 

Cast: Anja Barth, Gaia Bartolini, Steffi Leon, Thomas Lichtenstein, Christian Meier, Michel Schüler 
 

Realised in cooperation with the Institute for New Media, Rostock and the HFF - Konrad Wolf Academy of Film and Television, Potsdam 

WILHALM (Curon), 2012, Italy 

Mit der Unterstützung von MUSEION 

In the video Wilhalm (Curon), the artist himself sits in a simple wooden boat - a coffin converted into a canoe - and sails around the church tower of Graun in the Reschensee lake in the Vinschgau valley for 24 hours. In this physically demanding action, Sachsalber explores his own resilience within a defined time frame. 

The video is an example of his performative and unusual actions that teeter between seriousness and jest. He takes or uses everyday actions that he repeats to the point of obsession.  

Sven Sachsalber - Biography:

Sven Sachsalber grew up in Laatsch near Mals in the Vinschgau Valley. From 2010 to 2013 he studied art at the Royal College of Art in London. In 2014 he moved to New York, where he worked as an assistant to the artist Raymond Pettibon. One of his most important patrons was the artist Rudolf Stingl, who was from Merano and lived in New York. Sachsalber died in Vienna in December 2020 at the age of 33.

senza titolo, (1983) Italy 

with the support of MUSEION 

Two taps are facing each other on a round brass disc. From one of these taps a bronze leaf seems to flow like water. The brass disc bears the engraved signature of the artist and the dedication to the artist Ugo Carrega and to his Milan exhibition space "Mercato del Sale": ad Ugo ed / al suo "Mercato" / natale 1983.  

As an artist, he was preoccupied throughout his life with man's relationship to nature and social life. In the more than forty years of his artistic work, he has worked with every conceivable material and has constantly reinterpreted this diversity through soldering, casting, stamping and mounting. 

Alik Cavaliere - Biography:

Alik Cavaliere was the son of the poet Alberto Cavaliere and the Jewish-Russian artist Fanny Kaufmann. He studied sculpture at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, where he later became director. He is one of the greatest Italian masters of contemporary art of the second half of the 20th century. 

Shortly after his death in 1998, the Centro artistico Alik Cavaliere was founded in Milan to bring his artistic legacy to the wide audience.  

supported by MUSEION 

The light installation consists of two independent wooden elements worked with oil paint and synthetic resin. The two elements made of spruce wood can be combined with each other as desired and, depending on the arrangement and composition, always give rise to a new sculpture. The light is reduced to two rays that shine in white. 

The title Once upon a time alludes to the beginning of every story and stands for the origin of the universe, of mankind, but also of every single life. The rays of light stand as a connection between the world and the sky. 

Elisa Grezzani  - Biography:

Elisa Grezzani studied painting at the Art Academy in Urbino (I). From 2012 to 2017, she coordinated the mediation projects at Museion in Bolzano and worked as an assistant to the artist Robert Pan. Since 2009 Grezzani has participated with her work in collective exhibitions and since 2015 in solo exhibitions in Italy, Austria and Germany. In 2021 and 2022 she presented herself at the art fair Art Miami.  She is represented in public and private art collections.  

 "Goodnight Eileen" from 'Here to Go' by Terry Wilson / Brion Gysin (1982) (2003) Great Britain 

supported by MUSEION 

At the centre of Cerith Wyn Evans' light installation is a chandelier. A computer converts the literary text "Goodnight Eileen" from "Here to Go" by Terry Wilson and Brion Gysin (1982) into Morse code. The artist got the idea for Morse code while looking at the lights of Tokyo from the 20th floor of his hotel. The vibrating organism of lights, neon signs and characters left him with a striking memory. Unable to interpret the signs, he later came up with the idea of putting a language or quotation into a visual form. 

Cerith Wyn Evans - Biography: 

Wyn Evans is a British conceptual artist, sculptor and filmmaker. He studied in London at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and at the Royal College of Art. In 2002 he participated in Documenta 11 and in 2003 in the 50th Venice Biennale. In 2011 he created a 176 m² giant painting for the Vienna State Opera, which was shown in the 2011/2012 season as part of the "Iron Curtain" exhibition series conceived by the museum in progress. 

Luca Formentini interprets two art installations as a sound artist. While the installation "The Divine Burden" by Peter Fellin seems to float in space and absorbs the light upwards, four soundtracks run along the walls and fill the space. They are interwoven and yet independent, without ever repeating themselves. Fellin's monumental installation is part of the permanent art collection of the fortress. The second sound installation was created in direct confrontation with Alik Cavaliere's sculpture. Formentini transforms the different states of water into acoustic impulses that envelop the metal sculpture: Ice that melts, loses its rigidity and becomes water; water that turns into steam resembling a breath. 

Luca Formentini - Biography:

Luca Formentini is a composer, sound artist, environmentalist and wine producer. 

In addition to the guitar, he uses self-made instruments, nature recordings, voices and other acoustic and electronic instruments for his compositions. 

He repeatedly collaborates with sculptors, painters, film and theatre directors as well as with renowned musicians and composers of contemporary music such as Robert Rich, Markus Stockhausen and others.