Echo-Quest

Alexander Steig: Opening speech „Die ersten Jahre der Professionalität #42“, at Galerie der Künstler*innen, Munich, with Johanna Gonschorek, Claudia Holzinger, Minjae Lee, Youngjun Lee, Tom Messavilla, Lilian Robl Alexander Steig: Part 6 of the opening speech about Hannah Mitterwallner’s work „Echo-Quest“. Beyond the apparent emptiness of this space, the vertical placements and arrangements, the material collages and assemblages made of wood, plaster, acrylic, partially coated with molasses and pigments, already hint at how sculptor Hannah Mitterwallner transforms Room 6 into a place outside of familiar order. Nature-inspired formations, coated branches, and free, three-dimensional ornamental structures partly rest on "technical soles". Two media works flicker on the ground, one flashing playfully but muffled by a semi-transparent coating. As one searches for terminology, perhaps it lies on the soft side of the chitin armor of a creature lying on its back? The other shows a figure that rotates hectically on the ground, its limbs twitching in correspondence with those of the other, let's say boldly: a crab. On the wall, a wolf pack lurks on the scene, observing us as well as the setting. Where are we? On a dystopian stage, whose props lead us to a very personal and, depending on our own disposition, different performance? The location, the stage, is consistently occupied, yet light, open, and flexible enough to allow us to engage with the individual colorful caprices that dock onto the fixed elements of the installation here and there, and that sprout vital buds in a bizarre formation on the darkness and the homogeneous surface of their hosts. Hannah Mitterwallner's introduction or presentation Untitled (Echo-Quest) oscillates between familiar forms in an unfamiliar alliance, providing intuitive access, and yet refusing a clear, linguistic allocation. This is why each of the individual pieces as well as the overall view are named "o.t." (without title). Here, she creates a dreamlike place of not-yet and already-long-gone, which, in its sculptural precision, expertly avoids certain interpretations and prompts us to attempt our own interpretations within this fantastic arrangement.