Permanent art installations

The light installation by artist Julia Bornefeld refers to Robert von Ranke-Graves, who in 1955 interpreted the labyrinth myth of Knossos as the decisive transition from matriarchy to patriarchy. From her “heavenly machine” emanate numerous small, red-glowing light bundles from a large wound ball of red light fibres. All revolves around the central “light star,” like planets round the sun. the rotating light installation is enveloped with music of the spheres: a specially composed song (“Sehnsucht [Longing]”) by the music group Sense of Akasha from Bruneck.

Courtesy
Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Innsbruck
Antonella Cattani Contemporary Art, Bozen

In June 1991 the artist Peter Fellin presented his extensive project “Das jüdische Totengebirge [The Jewish Mountains of the Dead]” in Linz as a continuation of his previous work and at the same time as an escalation into the monumental. In his subsequent exhibition in the Galerie Museum in Bozen the artist created a space-related work: Die göttliche Belastung [the Divine Burden], which has now been recreated and documents his affinity to art as something spiritual.

Originally a temporary installation in the ar/ge kunst Galerie Museum, Bozen

A golden handrail leads up to the Middle Fortress. Visitors may contact the precious metal in a reference to the gold reserves stored in Franzensfeste. The artist Manfred Alois Mayr with his golden rail creates a sculpture that evokes both fantasies of happiness and freedom. The gold of the handrail mirrors the fine entanglements of money and mind, but also the fragile border between war and peace.

The handrail itself is both a utility object and a symbol of the transition from one state of matter to another.

Artist Robert Bosisio completed his military service with paper and pencil in his pack. He kept, diary-like, impressions of his comrades, from the dormitory to their military boots. The drawings installed in Franzensfeste, greatly enlarged, allows memories to regain their shape. The military barracks depicted by Bosisio and the fortress undergo a metamorphosis to become a total institution that assumes the character of an absolute situation through the extreme restriction of contact with the outside world. The walls of the Middle Fortress still bear numerous examples of graffiti, traces of messages left by soldiers.

Concept room installation: Paul Thuile

Artistic couple Franziska and Lois Weinberger have in their work Franzensfeste recorded the “absurd and unreal, the irrational and yet aesthetic nature of the granite bulwark of Franzensfeste, that was already outdated when construction began”.
Lois Weinberger notes: “Similar to the changing of the guard, I will observe the surroundings / the railway / the reservoir / eke out the length of a movie waiting for an enemy in Franzensfeste / there to find something insignificant and leave it in eternal bronze.” The result is an artistic film and a fountain sculpture made of bronze that has ultimately remained in the fortress. The artists were inspired by an empty plinth in the entrance courtyard of Franzensfeste upon which some warmonger was to be placed.

Foundry: Krismer, Telfs, Austria