Eleven tenants from four municipal housing blocks in the 5th district were selected and brought together with one of the eleven artists. In October 2012 over a period of ten days their apartments were publicly accessible in the course of guided tours. With the central theme of Orte und Objekte der Leidenschaft (Places and Objects of Passion) the project dealt with generating chains of association between residents and artists with the aim of realizing ideas that were guided by the process of their development: from angels to cacti, from mangas to garden gnomes, from sound bowls to rock fragments; dance steps, world receivers, revolutionaries, trophies, cabins and bead curtains – there were a lot of hidden and obvious passions with numerous reference points.

It was the stories that emerged during the project that were really important. They have become lasting memories of all participants.

The success of this project was due to the openness of expectations – there was no "redeeming” of predefined goals, but above all a basis for the development of new experiences. The path thus also became the goal. In retrospect, the visitors experienced the projects that emerged in this period above all as a closely connected story. A special form of sustainability emerged: a collage of impressions that encouraged new perspectives.

Text: Gerald Straub

Nikolaus Gansterer as a guest of Sanela Jovanovic: Learning by Drawing: The Second-Hand Manga Story
Both the host and the artist are interested in drawing and in Japan and took this as a central starting point for the project. So Sanela Jovanovic gave the artist spoken instructions, and he drew a Japanese Manga comic on the subject, without seeing them. So the “Manga” was an immediate means of communication, but also an instrument for perception, in order to research various signage cultures and interpretations. Through the public translation of a picture story into another language, the im/possibilities of language were questioned and renegotiated between the visible and the invisible.

Michael Hieslmair & Thomas Wolkinger as a guest of Hermann Tillich: Luxus
Luxus was arranged as multi-part installation around Zorica and Hermann Tillich’s garden in the Reumannhof: a poster on a pop song event including audio installation – a conversation with the hosts about good music – was stuck up on the “Gürtel” (driveway surrounding the Vienna city center), on the barred passageway from there to a cellar chamber underneath the hosts’ garden. A board was placed directly in the garden as well as a second audio installation, which claimed to inform about the “history” of the subterranean room from the meeting-place of the 1930s Social Democratic defense league to a shooting range to the club room.

Nicolas Jasmin as a guest of Lotfi Garouachi: The Journey
Nicolas Jasmin was once allowed to ride in an Avions Voisin C7, a car of the avant-garde and modernists of the 1920s, as Man Ray also owned one. The hosts, in contrast, did not have a car. So the artist undertook a filmic time journey in an Avions Voisin C7: in the host’s apartment the artist showed a video in which this vehicle plays a central role – a re-edited version of the 1929 film Les Mystères du Château de Dé by Man Ray. This new version showed Man Ray’s and Jacques-André Boiffard’s ride from Paris to Hyères. In addition, there was a copy of the car’s hood ornament in the apartment, surrounded by trophies, a collection of Bakelite radios and a miniature black camel.

Annja Krautgasser as a guest of Stella Deutsch: The Other Room
Stella Deutsch lives in a small two-room-apartment, but she uses only one room. The other was “superfluous” and “negatively charged.” She entered the room only to change clothes. It was precisely this room that the project was all about: a disturbing staging of the room focused on issues of habitation. To this end the artist complemented the furniture and arranged everything anew. The visitors to the “other room” noticed that “something was wrong.” Why did the room have such a different effect? Why were the two rooms so different? Why did another person live here? Stella Deutsch was positively surprised about the transformation of the room. At her wish the room remained in this state after the project.

Sonia Leimer as a guest of Immaculée Neuberg: Arrangement
Together with the host, the artist selected objects and plants from her flat and the studio and combined them to an arrangement. A Viennese dresser with an inbuilt short-wave radio served as a pedestal for the work.

Lazar Lyutakov as a guest of Roman Franzoi: Hoher Sonnblick/Lamp #32, Roman
On a lead-coated pedestal the artist placed an 8-kg stone that the host had carried down from the mountains. Since lead is very soft, it is difficult to create a smooth surface. So despite the weight the pedestal has an “organic” effect. Theatrical, improvised light lent the work with a context: from an old vase the artist created a lamp, which remained with the host and now illuminates his cacti.

Gerald Nestler as a guest of Siegfried Schönauer: Intervention
Gerald Nestler’s project took place in the Semmerl, a café run by the art host Sigi Schönauer. For the project, Gerald Nestler loaned a cast-concrete sculpture of a hand, for him a symbol of the workers’ movement with regard to municipal buildings. The fist “hibernated” in a fridge with glass door, which again stood on an oven, until “somebody” would take it out and “activate” it. In addition, Nestler stuck some passages from the last parliamentary speech by the Italian politician and anti-fascist Giacomo Matteotti in 1924 on semi-transparent foil onto the entrance door. Beforehand, he deleted all the terms relating to fascists and left these places blank. In parallel, an edited video extract of the 1973 film Il Delitto di Matteotti, on the life and death of Matteotti, was shown: it was exactly the moment that Matteotti met his murderer on the street.

Julia Rosenberger as a guest of Evelina Sabek: Born to Be Wild
The grasses and ferns of the work Born to Be Wild moved as if the wind were blowing through the leaves. They also do this in closed spaces indoors without a draft. Touching and rubbing against one another, the leaves even create sounds – a kind of glockenspiel in an imaginary wind. This intervention domesticated the forest plants in the new surroundings of the apartment. Not least this turned them into a powerful symbol of nature.

Ruby Sircar as a guest of Anna Stallecker: Helping Elves
The host is interested in spirituality – this coincided with some of the artist’s working themes, above all with regard to questions of friendship and togetherness. On the occasion of the action, “fanzines” with a text by Anna Stallecker and Ruby Sircar were folded. All the visitors received a closable bag with an extract of the Goethe plant, brief information on this medicinal plant as well as the fanzine with a mantra on new-wave popular spirituality. The visitors could test hospitality in the form of self-made marzipan figures and dandelion honey and take the medicinal plants home with them. A sound bowl performance by Anna Stallecker complemented the project.

Evamaria Trischak as a guest of Maryan Taghizadeh: polyxenic series #3
The third part of Evamaria Trischak’s performance-video series, polyxenic series, was shown In Maryan Taghizadeh’s living room. The venue of the choreographed event was the roof terrace of a former 1929 Bauhaus-style office building. In the background, among others the distinct buildings of the Herweghof are visible, which had been built only two years earlier. The tense atmosphere of the choreography, a ritualized movement sequence danced by Norma Espejel and the artist, was even intensified by the music track by Christian Fennesz. Afterwards there was a conversation between the host and the artist.

ubermorgen.com as a guest of Karin and Johann Hornik: Stormtime
ubermorgen treated the host’s flat as ready-made. To contextualize them, a picture key was attached to the rooms and the individual objects and an invisible Rammstein-appropriation textualized the space.