Art at the hotel
The interior decoration of the entire hotel is marked by a modern design. The uniqueness of the arrangement is underlined by the numerous original works of art which have been created exclusively for us.
The mural in the lounge …
... is seen by many visitors every day. It was designed by the well-known Viennese painter Franz Schwarzinger, an exponent of the younger Austrian generation of artists. He has also formed and painted the ceramic parts himself. They were burnt at the workshop of Droysen Ceramic Gallery Berlin.
It would surely have been more simple and less time-consuming to put a large photo on the wall, one showing Berlin, for instance: the viewer would grasp it at a glance, understand it - and discover the same when going out into the city. For the task of photography is to depict. A painting, on the other hand, "re-kneads" as Goethe said correspondingly; in it the artist creates a reality of his own. And this challenges us to make discoveries.
The dominating blue of the mural can allure like the vast infinity of the ocean.
Life-affirming signs, symbols of fertility are allocated to this: water, leafy twines and also symbols of decorative nature: plants in a vase.
Peculiar figures animate the area, are they chimeras, mythical creatures who have risen from our dreams? Do we find ourselves in it as a woman or a man, recreated by our imagination? Are they the incarnation of all adventures that we will encounter when discovering a strange city, the element of Columbus of any journey?
The viewer will, if he or she becomes immersed in the mural, discover unmistakable hints to the city of Berlin. At the left bottom, in a deep green on an almost painful red, there are the two unequally large parts of the city which had once been torn apart and recently been joined together again. The jagged shapes point both to the wounds of the past and to the opportunities of growing together. People, like pictograph-like and exchangeable, can be seen meeting one another on the territory of this city.
In the upper right, you can see a spider's web, reminiscent of the Berlin city railway network how it once looked prior to the separation of the city. Yet the artist would not be a Viennese, if he hadn't integrated a reference to his hometown: the layout of the Danube metropolis with its three concentric circles of inner city, ring and belt.
Is the amorphous couple on the point of turning away from the shore, in order to move on to new horizons or has it only just arrived, ready to get accustomed to its new surroundings? The artist leaves the interpretation up to us. These different attitudes are possible – the mural as a challenge to the world view.
Art, if it comprises something essential, can encourage us to a great abundance of questions. Of course, we must find the answers ourselves, though.
Berlin/Vienna May 1996
Richard Christ
