I’m strolling by way of the city of Dangerous Aussee, in Austria’s alpine Salzkammergut area, the place I’m anticipating a imaginative and prescient of depravity to emerge by way of the drizzle. The artists Wolfgang Müllegger and Georg Holzmann gleefully inform me how their large pink sculpture, which was not too long ago positioned within the city’s cafe-flanked park, brought about shock amongst locals. Many need it eliminated, they clarify, as we arrive on the paintings. It’s a relatively nice pastel-pink wood piece that might depict a pig in a mildly psychedelic youngsters’ TV present.
I say that the sculpture is totally inoffensive. “It’s simply ‘totally different’,” says Georg, carrying a hoodie and yellow waterproof dungarees, like a hipster fisher. He factors to a conventional stone statue of a historic determine within the park. “That is what they’re used to.”
The pink sculpture is one among a whole bunch of exhibitions and occasions happening throughout the area in 2024, due to the close by city of Dangerous Ischl and the broader Salzkammergut area changing into the primary rural alpine vacation spot to get European capital of tradition (ECOC) standing. The up to date artwork inflow is a color blast of creativity in an space that often attracts vacationers interested by historic villas, mountains and high-end lederhosen.
For the venture, Vienna-based design studio Lucy.D redesigned rooms in guesthouses throughout the area, impressed by native craftspeople working with wooden and dried grass. Venues beforehand closed to the general public, from semi-derelict mansions to quarries, host exhibitions. Many individuals say they’re invigorated by the excitement. However there have been belligerent reactions from some, who understand an outsider menace to traditions.
To succeed in Salzkammergut, I take the Eurostar from London to Brussels, the European Sleeper to Berlin, then overland trains to Dangerous Ischl. Leaving St Pancras within the early afternoon, I arrive at 6pm the following day, spending the final half-hour travelling down the west flank of the sea-like Traunsee.
Outdoors Dangerous Ischl’s practice station, I’m greeted by a chrome sculpture by Vienna-born artist Xenia Hausner depicting a gasping girl with a gasoline tank balanced on her head. It’s a “sensory picture of despair”, in line with the ECOC blurb, however elsewhere, Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I may be very a lot the face of this city, though has been lifeless since 1916. He and his mutton-chop sideburns are on postcards in each present store, and busloads of vacationers go to the Kaiservilla: Franz Joseph’s former residence. It’s now a museum at present with now has a serious exhibition of sculptures by Ai Weiwei.
Simply previous Dangerous Ischl’s market, the place two boys in lederhosen are taking part in accordions, I come to the white-walled Sudhaus complicated. It was as soon as a facility for processing salt, which is nearly as necessary in Dangerous Ischl as Franz Joseph. Salzkammergut means “salt area”, and salt has been mined right here for dates again hundreds of years. The centrepiece of the exhibition at Sudhaus is Motoi Yamamoto’s Labyrinth: an intricate maze created by the Japanese artist utilizing salt grains on the gallery flooring. A video by Israeli artist Sigalit Landau, exhibiting boots coated in salt crystals melting into an icy lake, is projected on a wall. Soccer-sized sculptures of human tooth, carved from rock salt, litter the bottom.
Many Salzkammergut residents I meet agree that this ECOC content material is tremendously thrilling, however one taxi driver says it’s “too international”, and the authorities ought to promote conventional dancing and dressmaking as an alternative. Others are aghast at a number of the extra daring occasions.
The ECOC programme started in January with a up to date “powder dance” by choreographer Doris Uhlich, together with plenty of nudity and talcum powder, livestreamed to a church in Dangerous Ischl. For a city steeped in classical music historical past, which celebrates the good composer Franz Lehár proudly owning a villa right here, this should have felt radical.
Simone Barlian, an artist and curator from the close by city of Gmunden, says she was confronted by a small mob of locals due to her position organising ECOC occasions. “They have been like, ‘These ugly bare our bodies … disgrace on you!’,” she says. “I burst into tears.”
I meet Barlian and members of her all-female efficiency artwork collective, Raumarbeiterinnen, in a floating wood sauna on lake Traunsee that they constructed for ECOC. Simone apologises for us having to put on swimwear. Native authorities warned the ladies to not do nudity right here. Simone tells me that when an enormous artwork piece depicting two girls kissing was displayed in Gmunden, some folks spat at metropolis officers in protest.
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“They only need conventional issues within the countryside,” she says. “They’re not used to this. However the cool factor was, after the church livestream, the monks have been like, ‘Come on! Jesus has been proven half-naked in church for hundreds of years, so don’t make such a fuss’.”
Elisabeth Schweeger, inventive director of the Salzkammergut ECOC occasions, is equally dismissive of such criticism, and says she desires to point out me the significance of bringing new artwork to the world. She drives me to a leafy memorial complicated on the positioning of Ebensee focus camp, the place 27,278 prisoners from greater than 20 international locations, together with political prisoners and Jews, have been held between 1943 and 1945. Greater than 8,000 of them died there, or because of their imprisonment. The Nazis used enslaved inmates to construct infrastructure, and saved looted artwork in close by mines. Goosebumps get away on my arms as we enter an enormous stone tunnel minimize into the mountain as a part of the Nazi venture. Because the temperature drops, I see a cascade of purple strands. That is Osaka-born artist Chiharu Shiota’s The place Are We Now: a whole bunch of kilometres of skinny purple string draped from the stone ceiling, incorporating about 20 purple and white attire.
“There’s purple, which makes you consider blood,” says Elisabeth. “However the white provides an optimistic imaginative and prescient. It’s not solely darkness right here.”
Data boards detailing inmates’ struggling adorn the partitions subsequent to Shiota’s attire. Elisabeth is worried that youthful generations aren’t studying the teachings of previous horrors, and hopes that artwork would possibly remind them. “It is a new means of reflecting on how we cope with it,” she says.
Different large themes are being explored. US sound artist Invoice Fontana has positioned microphones in rivers created by the melting of Schladming Glacier, which is shrinking because the local weather heats up. The sound of the glacier crying is being livestreamed into a close-by ice cave. Native artist Heidi Zednik has documented the impression of the local weather disaster on fish, creating works utilizing hatchery tank filters.
For different native artists, the ECOC standing is just an opportunity to unleash their creativity. Müllegger, who co-created the pink Dangerous Aussee sculpture, makes a residing constructing conventional wood boats. Now he has an opportunity to point out off his ardour venture: garishly painted sculptures constituted of constructing foam.
“We perceive that our position right here is seen as representing the world,” says Holzmann, Müllegger’s artwork collaborator. “However we now have the suitable to specific ourselves, and this doesn’t occur quite a bit right here. Up to date artwork often simply goes to cities.”
Holzmann nods in the direction of a full-scale “self-portrait” sculpture Müllegger constituted of constructing foam that resembles a half-melted model. This, I agree, is means cooler than a ship. “We’re fortunate to be a part of this,” Georg says.
Practice journey from London to Brussels was supplied by Eurostar (from £51 a technique). Journey from Brussels to Berlin was supplied by European Sleeper (couchettes from €79 a technique). Journey from Berlin to Dangerous Ischl was supplied by Omio. Lodging in Dangerous Ischl and Gmunden was supplied by Hubertushof (doubles from €198 B&B) and Seehotel Schwan (doubles from €98 B&B), by way of Austria Tourism and Salzkammergut Tourism. .
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