Plan of the Exhibition
Originally my exhibition in the parish Church of Krumpendorf am Wörthersee was planned in three parts: 'Lenten - Easter/Unfold'. The first part consisted of a Lenten Veil for the ritual fasting period (40 days before Easter), which was hung in front of the altar on the Ash-Wednesday, 26th February 2020, as scheduled. The Lenten Veil had to stand alone in the empty church till Easter to honour the meaning of the fasting period also visually. However, not only the accompanying programmes during the fasting period but also the second part of the exhibition that was planned for the Easter Sunday had to be rescheduled in uncertainty, because of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to the lockdown from mid-March 2020, the Lenten Cloth remained hanging until well after Easter, and the second part of the project had to be postponed indefinitely at first.
Lenten Veil/Fastentuch
The Lenten cloth should form a part of the action "Krumpendorf - a village fasts 2020" of the Roman-Catholic parish in cooperation with the municipality of Krumpendorf. The Lenten cloth has a total height of 6.66 metres and a width of 5.40 metres. The medium is black ink, black pigments on primed white cotton fabric. It consists of three panels. The middle section shows two winged beings wrestling with each other, but at the same time intertwined like one being. The upper light figure symbolises the archangel Michael, the lower dark figure the fallen angel. In the context of the pandemic, the theme of the victory of the light, uplifting force over the dark, downward-pressing force took on a new meaning.
To view a short video of the Lenten veil, please CLICK HERE.
Exhibition ''Aufbruch'' (Departure)
The exhibition "Aufbruch'' (Departure) was opend in the Sunday service on 28 June 2020 with two pictures on the theme of Easter and eight other individual pictures. The lockdown had been relaxed from mid-May and services in the church were then possible again. The two pictures on the theme of Easter "Our Hands I - Night in Blue" and "Our Hands II - Morning in Red" are hung to the left and right of the altar. Their width is 1.70 metres. In accordance with the shape of the ceiling, the upper part of the pictures is slanted (height 7.86 and 7.35 metres respectively). The medium is ash from the burning of willow branches on Ash Wednesday, pigments, textile dyes on cotton fabric. The special material in these paintings are numerous hand outline drawings that had been drawn and painted by people in Krumpendorf for the project and which acted as a source of inspiration in the creative process. Already in autumn 2019, I had introduced myself to the people of Krumpendorf via the parish with the help of a text sheet. People in Krumpendorf were invited to participate in the project by handing in their hand outline drawings, in order to collect the essential "basic ingredients" for the two pictures and to involve the people of Krumpendorf - children, women, men of all ages - in the pictures.
My personal themes - e.g. the self split between dark and light, or the question of the meaning of life - were extended to the larger level of traditional Christian motifs. The intensive examination of the theme of the archangels took place, among other things, in the form of discussions between me and the pastor of Krumpendorf, Mag. Hans-Peter Premur, university chaplain at the University of Klagenfurt. As I am a Buddhist, the project had a interreligious dimension.
In the blue picture on the left, the motif of the tree of life is expressed by the movement of the hands and birds upwards, in the red picture on the right, it is expressed downwards. One tree of life is rooted in the earth and its branches grow towards the sky. In the other tree of life the roots grow upwards and its branches downwards, as the Indian text Bhagavad Gita describes in chapter 15. The pair of pictures with the theme "Our Hands" corresponds with the symbolism of the two archangels Michael and Gabriel, who are depicted in the parish church of Krumpendorf in the form of large contemporary wooden sculptures in the rear part of the church interior.