17_13_60x50_23.jpg

Reduction, Variation, and Excess

A horizontal line crosses a vertical one, then another, and another, vertically, horizontally. The lines form a solid base, provide a sense of proportion, give the eye something to hold on to. In a contrasting togetherness they form grids striving outward in all directions, sensory images of control and predictability that, within a paradoxical reconciliation of opposites, prove to be prototypes of transformability and openness for any chosen content, an ideal-typical framework for all kinds of modifications, ventures, experiments. Some lines run criss-cross, while others, in their… Continue Reading

Sarah Kolb, January 2025

b_1200pix_c_evakelety_003-kopie.jpg

Spaces of Possibility

Franz Türtscher’s wall objects from the extensive series “Picture Architecture – Open Frame”, ranging from the relief-like to the three-dimensional, distinguish themselves first and foremost through their square, modular character. The early works of this series, created at the beginning of the 1990s, are preceded by detailed planning sketches. They contain indications of measurements accurate down to the millimetre as well as the material used for the individual components: acrylic glass, various coated particle boards, plywood, rubber, cork, and even polyester. Later, acrylic… Continue Reading

Hartwig Knack, October 2024

Taking Pictures at Their Word

He has actually always worked with text, Franz Türtscher tells me. He was interested in the formal and aesthetic aspects of typography: texts that form drawings, words as “positive stimulants” that one can spend a longer time reflecting on, the use of Vorarlberg dialects as a reference to his native Austrian province and in general in relation to language as a feature that provides a sense of identity. For several centuries, written characters have been used as images, symbols, signs, and material in poetry as well as in the visual arts. Drawing inspiration from individual letters,… Continue Reading

Hartwig Knack, October 2024

5KB_B_22_X_23a-K.jpg

Colour-Light (Farb-Licht)

On Franz Türtscher’s artistic intervention “Farb-Licht” on the stations designed by the architect Hans Riemelmoser at the new Kriegerhornbahn in Lech / Arlberg The newly built cable-way onto the Kriegerhorn does not only set fresh standards in the areas of comfort of functionality of passenger transport, but also demonstrates the underlying architectural stance through its clear language of form, that seeks to create an immediacy in the experience of spacial and sensory quality, through well thought-out and consequent implementation of various means. Riemelmoser designed the… Continue Reading

Christian Muhr, January 2002

4HP_s_72_59.jpg

Diagrams of the present

Flash victory of a term: most of the attempts to describe contemporary culture have been straining the metaphor of a net up to the breaking point. Within next to no time the net mutated to the paradigmatic model of post-industrial society per se, with the pretence of being able to adequately describe its building principles and functionalities in the form of “connections”. This interconnected “Society of the And” (Romer van Toorn) no longer developed out of the dynamics of forces that augment along the exclusionary categories of “either/or”, but rather the “and”, builds its extremely… Continue Reading

Christian Muhr, January 2001