HUBERT LOBNIG
Place in Time
The opening will take place as part of the Long Night of Museums. The exhibition venue can be visited free of charge at the opening and throughout the entire duration.
Place in time
For the past two years, different artists have been showcasing their work biannually in the entrance area of the OKZT company. Located in the former building of the Kastner & Öhler department store (a large sporting goods retailer) in Klagenfurt, the original idea behind this project for the engineering firm was to reopen this once vibrant building to the public. Various artistic projects have thus left their mark on the company—some of the artistic interventions have even become a permanent part of the building.
With the site-specific projection installation Place in Time by Hubert Lobnig, the artistic focus now shifts to the place itself, its architecture, topography, history, and the square in front, where the constant flow of traffic prevents any opportunity for lingering. Once, there stood a monument, a fountain, a small gas station.
For the lower floor of the revitalized OKZT office, Hubert Lobnig has designed an installation made of self-supporting modular image elements, which are colored and partially painted and played with projections. The film that the artist has newly produced for the projection onto the installation consists of archival material—mostly photographs—and newly filmed scenes from inside the building and various viewpoints of the square. It circles the building in past and present. The projections bring memories to life, not only of the different faces of the building and square but also of the history of Klagenfurt.
Hubert Lobnig, who grew up in Völkermarkt, knows the facade in its frontal view as a gateway to the center of Klagenfurt. Even today, Völkermarkter Straße leads into the city center here. Thanks to the projections, the constant flow of passing traffic now meets its mirror image, reflecting the interior of the building and offering fleeting glimpses into the history of the place, as a livestock market, as Völkermarkter Platz, or as Feldmarschall-Conrad-Platz. The names alone point to its different uses, its connection to the axis towards Völkermarkt, and the historical projection cast upon it. (The highly controversial historical figure after whom the square is named led, for example, in Graz to significant discussions and initiatives for renaming Conrad von Hötzendorf Street, which ultimately did not happen).
The film captures the movements of the slowly rotating advertising column on the other side of the street and the slow-moving traffic. Inside and outside, past and present merge into a continuous flow of signs and images. A building, a place that has inscribed itself in the memories of Klagenfurt’s residents in various ways, is artistically brought to life again.
The film revisits the intertwining of time and place in its central part, where the movement of the camera and car traffic briefly comes to rest. A person moves in an upward and downward motion on the main staircase, the core of the building—forward, backward, up, down, like in an M. C. Escher loop.