26 meters high and 4.5 meters wide, this extensive piece by Ingeborg Strobl, which consists of 56 enamel panels, relates to the older names of today’s Novaragasse, which from 1797 and 1812 was called Gartengasse (“Garden Lane”) and until 1863 Gärtnergasse (“Gardener’s Lane”). ein Garten (zum Beispiel) (a garden [for instance ]) is an artistic exploration of the fundamental transformation that the street went through over the centuries and maybe an inspiration to have a small garden of one’s own. The models for the representations of plants are nineteenthcentury woodcuts which also refer to the so-called Novara expedition, the first and only scientific around-the-world research mission undertaken by the Austrian Navy.

The artists interweaves these narrative strands in her façade work, unfolding amid the urban space a symbol of political-ecological awareness – an awareness of the value of locally grown foods, the peculiarities of the local vegetation, the precious privilege of having one’s own kitchen garden. The plants depicted here would actually thrive and flourish in Vienna und could be part of any average garden in town.

With her conceptual approach, Ingeborg Strobl translates given elements of art and natural history into the reduced and self-reflecting language of the ostensibly familiar and everyday. Questions of art context and artistic signature style stay in the background while the focus is on the vegetal subject of her work and the appeal it may have for an interested public.