Drawing with steel

Elsy Lahner, 2023

When it comes to defining the main characteristic of a drawing, it is the line, the stroke, rather than the medium. The genre has long since emancipated itself and is no longer limited to a sheet of paper in contemporary art. Drawings can take on any size or be only temporary. It can be found on walls, on all kinds of materials, in digital and virtual space and in the third dimension. But not every line in space is a drawing. Whether it can be defined as such has a lot to do with the artistic practice, the process of creation and the understanding of it. Viktoria Morgenstern describes their metal sculptures as drawings, as their approach is one of drawing. For them, any kind of background is superfluous material and a limitation.

For them, line arises from movement, using the whole body. They endeavours to liberate the line, to set it free in the free it in space, while at the same time reducing it to the bare essentials. To achieve this, the artist works with steel rods, which she bends into shapes. They follow an affect, traces an emotion, triggered by an experience or a memory. Psychological research has investigated whether certain structures are associated with specific characteristics or feelings, whether biomorphic figures - i.e. curved lines and gentle contours - are associated with harmony, calm and well-being, for example, while geometric figures with corners, edges and sharp angles are associated with negative emotions such as restlessness or aggression. Viktoria Morgenstern draws on their personal repertoire of shapes to find the form that corresponds to their emotion by drawing a three-dimensional line.

In this way, line after line is placed, joined and welded together until the result forms the equivalent of the intended content. This can be a story or an episode in the form of an individual work or part of a larger theme that the artist has researched in advance. Morgenstern uses steel with a diameter of 2 to 12 mm for her works. This industrial product is a material in its raw state, which still makes everything possible, can be anything and becomes more stable the more it is bent due to the material tension.

In their work, the artist allows for chance and retains unintentional flaws, for example when their hip presses too hard against the steel when moulding it and consequently creates an unplanned curve in the line, or when they leave the remains of spot welds, which they temporarily places to fix them, as traces of the process. In some works, the artist leaves the structure as it is; in others, the surface is meticulously sanded, hand-painted or powder-coated - design aspects that change the emotional impact and connotation of the objects. To come back to the drawing, this procedure is comparable to the decision to use pencil or coloured pencil, if in one case it is exclusively about the form itself, a reduction or the material, whereas in the other the colour is more relevant. Morgenstern‘s creations convey a fragility through their colouring that is hardly associated with the weight of the steel. Rather, they are reminiscent of filigree organisms, flower heads or unicellular organisms.

The artist therefore also refers to them as „species“ with their own physicality and a life of their own, which at times elude their control. The objects occasionally bring to mind those shapes made of paper clips - especially those covered in a colourful layer of plastic - that we bend into shape in passing while our attention is focused on something else.

In a way, they are the spatial equivalent of what we describe in the drawing as a doodle, an unconscious scribble, and which, seen in this way, perhaps provide information about our own state of mind. With Morgenstern, however, it is not a by-product, but a conscious translation into a specific form. Their lines are precise and carefully placed and convey their intentions in a way that is profound and weighty in the truest sense of the word.

The Last Habitat. This is only a beginning.

Erka Shalari, 2023

Some of the changes happening in the world are very loud and clearly visible, while others are slow and silent. Over the last years Viktoria Morgenstern has developed a strong interest in science and nature, vulcanology and geology, biology and sociology. The study of societies in critical zones has as its starting point journeys to volcanic regions, such as the Canary Islands and Sicily. Journeys that the artist has made alone or in collaboration with research groups. She has been documenting and collecting what she saw.

On Etna, for example, Morgenstern dedicates her observation of the status quo to the singular birches, Betula Aetnensis, which found their way from the high latitudes of northern Europe to the volcanic soil of Sicily and are now disappearing. On the black soil the trees find themselves between living and dying. Whole teams of researchers, people who live on the edge of these mountains, live between despair and resilience. But some places in nature can never be controlled, they will never be conquered by man. So, for instance, we can‘t say to whom a volcano belongs, we can measure its activities, but we can barely make exact predictions. There may be a domain where the energy can only be controlled by the earth (Morgenstern, 2023). Man-made structures to make predictions, as soon as they are installed, are quickly devoured by the mountains. In certain places, one can also question if there is life at all or if there is nothing but power from the earth within and its materials.

This has had such an impact on the artist that for a long time it could be expressed only on hundreds of drawings on paper and canvas. This is Morgenstern’s way to construct connections, raise questions, and explore complex relationships. The work „Das letzte Habitat“ (The Last Habitat) is then the first three-dimensional materialization in this new body of works – expressed through monumental volumes, all forms driven by the intuition of the body and the work process, made to be seen just in nature, surrounded by a round ‘fortification’.

By drawing what she sees and feels Morgenstern places herself and all of us in this in-between state, attempting to give space to the grief and pain of watching something die but being unable to do much to stop it. Yet, at the same time, these works are a call to wake up from the state of torpor. As in other series such as „Deep Touch Pressure“ (2021) or the contribution „We all drink the same water“ at the Perspektiven Festival in Attersee (2022), the artist is in search of ways to activate the viewers, to reduce their fears, to balance, to find common solutions, resilience, and acceptance – to overcome what at first looks like mere disaster and destruction.

Into the Inferno #1 (1), Into the Inferno #2, Into the Inferno #4 are the latest works of this body, which is clearly only in its beginning. The artist is known for her practice of thinking in chapters (2), everything that happens in her inner and outer world is experienced in this way, as images that follow one another in an endless juxtaposition of emotions and physical sensations.

The aesthetic of all works persists to remain reduced, characteristic of the artist‘s practice, where there is no single line or colour without function or reason. All is composed of shapes made of steel and brass, a material that has not only grounding effects, but that for years has enabled the artist to connect with the world on a much deeper level. Maybe because the earth’s core is actually made of liquid metal.

– Erka Shalari

Notes:

(1) The work was part of the group show „On the New. Viennese Scenes and Beyond – Part 1“ at Belvede- re 21

(2) This is also the case in: Hug #1, Hug #2, Hug #3

Interview Audi art week featured by PARNASS