The performative sculpture UMWÖLKT makes formal reference to the plague column, the suffering and despair at its base and the transcended space at its top.
Actresses climb and perform on the sculpture, transforming it into a scenic object, giving it a voice that speaks to the plague column and the people. To do this, actresses climb inside the sculpture and stretch their arms, legs or heads through openings in the sculpture while conducting a dialog with the higher being. Other performers climb onto the sculpture from the outside and position themselves sitting, standing, hanging, lying, looking down, looking upwards. The postures refer to the various angels and holy statues that are incorporated into the cloud spiral of the plague column and stop the poisonous winds of the plague.

Among others, we refer to Lodovico Burnacini, one of the artists significantly involved in the design and construction of the plague column. Burnacini, who is closely associated with the Baroque carnival festivals and grotesque comedy, mixing hellish visions with carnival. This enables a hybrid view of the Plague Column as an amalgam of the sacred and the profane and broadens the view of the grotesque with its outgrowths, ramifications, curvatures, body dramas, the undefined and the open – the dissolution between performance, procession and exhibition.

Further information

Actresses: Charlie Sondermann und Nils Karlson Hering

https://www.koer.or.at/projekte/umwoelkt/