Dada Pipes and Duct Tape

I visited Water Light Festival in Bressanone one year ago. To commemorate that happy visit and to celebrate the following edition starting today, I'll share my experiences with a minor delay. 

The festival's name pretty much defines its content. The artworks approached water from varied angles: they were about water, imitating water, commenting water, using water as material – or even immersed in water. The connection was not always obvious, but it was there, at least after some brain gymnastics. The artworks were well chosen, pleasing the thirst for beauty but not afraid of a little more challenging aesthetics. The placing of artworks was done carefully, with an eye for environment and its connection to the piece, not just distributed around the city. 

I would congratulate the curator, if I knew their name, but that seemed to be confidential information, at least judging by the festival prints. A major frown from a colleague.

Dada Pipes and other Projections

The projection pieces of the festival were diverse and gloriously un-stereotypical. Even the compulsory church projection was, even if super beautiful, designed with a clear idea and taste. It was a pleasure for once to follow an actual dramaturgy in a projection, instead of a parade of the latest video effects in fast forward. The artist Spectaculaires had a rare art historical approach to the cathedral of Bressanone in their Colours of the Cathedral. The façade of the building was re-colored with hues that have actually existed in history, according to old sketches of the church. Obviously, there was heavy embellishment involved, but the result was quite enjoyable, without one single flying brick or twisting tower. 

Some projection time traveling

Refik Anadol’s Bosphorus was an example of very trendy data based / generated / inspired art, that is especially ubiquitous in video art. Here, the turbulent, cubic but water-like mass is whirling “inspired by the high frequency data of Marmara Sea”. Does it make any difference to my experience that I know this? As usual, no. It’s still a pretty neat artwork, though, and in a very well-chosen place.

Blocks of water

As mentioned in a previous post, Detlef Hartung and Georg Trenz are old pals with Panta Rhei metaphor of everything flowing. In this case, words (believed to be said) by Heraclitus are the flowing thing and the canvas is St. Erhard’s church, a cottage-like building in a small square. Flowing also happens in the readability of the words, fluctuating between clarity and typographic mass. Maybe it is the graphic designer in me, but I found the composition by letters of the artwork enchanting.

Can you read the house?

Sometimes projection mappings don’t make any sense to me. You know, unexplained whales in jungle, exploding diamonds, flowers growing from eyes and sparkles everywhere kind of stuff. But after seeing Peter Aerschmann’s H2O I realized that maybe they are not meant to make any sense in the first place. Maybe t’s all about Dada! H2O was absolutely hilarious, introducing birds in swings hanging in piping systems, golden eggs appearing, faucets made of tree rooting, followed by even weirder stuff even Marcel Duchamp would be jealous of! You really couldn’t tell, what will come out next. How vividly lovely!

A hen with a faucet as a head. Obviously.

Some Proven and Possible Classics

Water Light Festival combined well known, subtle classics of light art, dwelling peacefully by the monastery, with younger generation’s artworks around the city, just waiting to be canonized.

Going to the monastery hoods, one got a chance to see some established light artists, like James Turrell, Brigitte Kowanz and Keith Sonnier, and taste some established wines of the area. James Turrell is presented by a painting-like study of colour, no surprises there. Beautiful, of course. Also, the instalment made me so curious that I took my chance to do some spying behind the scenes while I was alone in the space. No surprises there, either, but it made me chuckle to see that even James Turrell needs duct tape.

Changing colours à la Turrell are my favourite kind of changing colours

I’ve long waited to see a Massimo Uberti’s works live, and now I got my chance. Oh, what a white crispy line galore! In Uberti’s Battistero d’Oro a baptistery appears above an octagonal fountain, marked by its glowing light tube window frames. The artwork balances gracefully between materiality and imagination, the latter building the rest of the building our eyes can’t see. A strike of geniality in simplicity!

A see-through baptistery by Mr. Uberti

The thin blue-ish lines of Senses and Spaces, forming pentagram-like forms on the Franzensfeste Fortezza’s walls, are a trademark of Vincenzo Marsiglia. This was an example of especially insightful setting, the crispy stars nonchalantly embracing the environment as a whole, not just the houses they was attached to. I know the shape is not a pentagram, but it looks a little like one and does it really make any difference to postmodern demons? In the dark I couldn’t tell if the other few persons looming around were underworld visitors or just fellow tourists. Until they started taking selfies. Phew.

There were no demons that I know of

As an example of a more demanding piece of art, Arnold Mario Dall’o’s rugged The Art of Love was everything but nice and fancy. I would even call it violent. Two strong water jets rocked recklessly in a big plexi tube, and I just couldn’t decide if I should tell them to stop fighting or get a room. I’d expect to see this kind of visually and thematically ambiguous artwork in Venice Biennale, not in a light art festival, which makes me respect the (unknown) curators even more.

Lots of water, lots of light

Mysterious outer skirts

After a short hike from the center to a suburban park I notice a man in a boat with a Moon. Sure, why not. A travelling artwork had landed in a pool in the outskirts of Bressanone, bringing Leonid Tishkov’s Private Moon to yet another destination. The previous stops include places like, you know, The Arctic. This artwork is enchanting on more than one level. Obviously, Moon as a person is a thingy of fairy tales to begin with, but a live person sitting in a boat with it, instead of a dummy, is just charmingly mythical. The audience was sparse at the time of my visit, so the piece felt especially intimate.

A man and a Moon

The enigmatic ambience continued in the blue maze of La Maison Flux by Sophie Guyot, filled with whispers and captivated branches. From the images I reckoned this would be another handicraft Hell, but the actual experience was quite the opposite. Haunting and beautiful. A very perfect finish to my tour in Water Light Festival. 

It was no askartelu-paskartelu, this one

Touristy tip

The Hotel Grauer Bäer in Via Mercato Vecchio 27 is a Twin Peaks experience, just without the creepy stuff. Peculiar, in a very good way. The décor is a time trip to 80’s hunting lodge, what with all the skulls on the wall, and of course the huge teddy bears used for advertising, spending their nights in the hallways. Breakfast mainly includes products from a family farm and a cup of damn good coffee. And a piece of cake. Every morning a huge piece of different kind of damn good cake. Prices are reasonable, rooms comfortable and location is great. Not to mention the wonderful staff.