Wera Hippesroither
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other. I immediately recognized you and your rough, but still very fragile nature. I’ve used you many times when I was crafting with my grandmother. When we poked flowers or branches in you, they kept standing and stayed fresh. Now I see you in the hands of artist Asher O’Gorman. In an installation setting at Atelier Augarten, you are spread all over the place. In one corner, O’Gorman piled you up as bricks. Not all of the bricks are of the same dark green colour I used to know. When the artist picks some of you up, I understand why. She leans all of her bodyweight in her hands and squeezes you so that coloured ink comes out. You act like a sponge for colour and release it to produce beautiful patterns on chromatographic paper, which is also to be found all over the studio.
I can still remember how it gave me goose bumps every time I tried to cut you. Your material is just so crumbly and raspy, but at the same time light-weight and fragile. It is very hard to even touch you without altering your shape. I never knew you had such artistic potential. At my grandmother’s, you were just used to hold up branches, but the way O’Gorman handles you, is something totally different. She grinds you with her hands until you are gone and only rough crumbles on the floor are left. She steps on you until you give in and reveal the colour you were holding in. She uses you as stamps to leave marks on the floor.
No matter how the artist approaches you, you respond in some way. Your reaction is always different, as if you were intelligently communicating with O’Gorman and us. Your ways of communicating are unforeseen and always new. In a way, you are the performer of this piece. You are just so much more than Steckschaum and I am very grateful to re-encounter you in such a beautiful and artistic way, thanks to Asher O’Gorman.
All the best,
Wera
Wera Hippesroither: PhD student and scientific project staff at University of Vienna. Thesis focusses on the relationship between the everyday and the theatrical, with an emphasis on postmodern performance practices in urban spaces. Contemporary theatre critics on pw-magazine.com.
