Waiting for Stars
In the group of works »Waiting for Stars« larger and smaller groups of people that have assembled by chance wait with bated breath for that which is to come, changes and events. Whatever they are waiting for quite literally keeps them waiting, however. The people positively adapt to this situation, adopting suitable positions; they appear to be frozen in time as they stare at surfaces that simulate
spaces.

In »Waiting for Stars 02« young visitors at a MoMA exhibition in New York look at a digital painting by Jeremy Blake and wait for the pictorially immanent change of appearance. »I was fascinated by the work because the picture underwent permanent change, from a star-filled sky via square pixels into a Colour Field painting and back again. I transposed this effect from the digital surface into space. I myself am reflected in the glass while I perceive young people as they perceive art [and perceive me]. That made me think of Dan Graham’s definition of a paradigm of conceptual art: intersubjectivity.« In »Waiting for Stars 03« a group of bored-looking people who simultaneously exude an air of patience waits on the market square of TimiÅŸoara in Romania for the appearance of a pop star. Events in the same place but at a different time are superimposed on this situation: here, as in many Romanian towns and cities, demonstrators became embroiled in bloody battles in 1989, eventually leading to the overthrow of the dictator Nicolae CeauÅŸescu.

»Waiting for Stars 04« depicts a situation at Marco Polo airport in Venice. From the point of view of those waiting for flights, information about departure times is of primary importance. This, however, is virtually covered by oversized sexist advertising panels. Landau has also included in the composition a veiled reference to attempts to convert the airport to military use: the small monitors at the counters show a military aircraft with American parachutists; something that exists only for those waiting in the pictorial world created by the artist.
—By Frank Schulz

In: Verena Landau, Passages, Passengers, Places, Hirmer Verlag München, 2013, p. 98
Source [shortened, revised excerpt]: Frank Schulz, Spektrum, published by the Institut für Kunstpädagogik, University of Leipzig [exh. cat. Galerie im Neuen Augusteum, University of Leipzig], Leipzig 2013.

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Prof. Dr. hab. Frank Schulz
Professor of Art Education /Teaching Art
Director of the Institute of Art Education, University of Leipzig
CEO of Mehlhorn Foundation Leipzig
Editor [together with  Johannes Kirschenmann and Maria Peters] of the series
»Kontext Kunstpädagogik« in kopaed Verlag Munich
Lives and works in Leipzig
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