Output details

Suspended Space. Two site-specific gallery installations. Sky Deck (Gateshead, UK, 2009): commissioned and curated by Workplace Gallery, sponsored by the construction company R.Bau Ltd (Sunderland, UK). Galleria 480, (Bologna, Italy, 2009): commissioned and curated by Neon Gallery; substantial in-kind sponsorship from two international construction companies (Layher and Gasbeton). The project was supported by the Nosadella Due residency programme (Bologna). See: http://www.wolfgangweileder.com/installation/skydeck.html

‘Suspended Space’ comprises two site-specific gallery installations made in response to research questions regarding the relationship between art and architectural space. Rather than the object-based territory of the minimalists, this research takes as its discrete point of departure the sometimes complex correlation of interior and exterior space and, therein, the destabilisation of the viewing experience within a realm in which viewing is paramount (the gallery space). In its interrogation of gallery architecture it extends the trajectory of previous research projects (such as Transfer, 2006).

The projects have an iterative relationship through which an innovative method of suspension is developed and tested. Firstly, in Sky Deck, external architectural features are juxtaposed with the interior gallery space, through a self-referential process of replicating and shifting existing architectural parameters within the space. The echoing effect destabilizes and deconstructs the gallery as a functional space and emphasizes the phenomenological rather than solely visual nature of perception. This is furthered in Galleria 480 in a more developed approach where the interior gallery space is juxtaposed with its own architecture by effectively rotating the structure and inserting the exterior within the interior space. Developing the self-referential element to explore the interior/exterior spatial symbiosis further complicates the experience of being within the space. The use of lightweight concrete blocks suspended from the ceiling but supported through scaffolding alludes to the architectural echoing but the suspension disrupts straightforward comprehension. Through the resulting interference between both architectural structures (the inserted and the existing) a new reading of architectural space and its creation is offered.

Sky Deck and Galleria 480 are discussed in ’Continuum’, a monograph on Weileder published internationally by Kerber Verlag (Bielefeld/Berlin) and, their international currency is shown by their discussion, in Flash Art International and Flash Art Italy.