„We all swim in the same water“ – an exhibition of the academy students of the class Gregor Hildebrandt in the Pasinger factory
Everyone for themselves and all together. According to this principle, the Academy students of the class of Gregor Hildebrandt are currently artistically swimming free in the rooms of the Pasinger factory. All had in common a photograph of François Kollar from Paris in 1930. On it are swimming students, each fighting for their own progress in a pool. Only one sits on the edge of the pool – an excluded or a refusenik? The teacher is in a suit and tie on the edge watching his students.
This photo had seen the Hildebrandt class during an excursion. After consulting the curator of the Pasinger factory Stefan-Maria Mittendorf, this nucleus became a cosmos. If you go to the swimming pool, you have to wait at the cash register, then go into the locker room, into the shower and finally into the bathing hall. That’s what the exhibition is all about and that works pretty well – with a few exceptions.
Most students have created new works that incorporate these themes in a variety of techniques. Painting, sculpture, installation, photography, conceptual work. In the checkout you look around: The viewer gets a first impression of what awaits him. In the changing room you have to choose a collective or single cabin: The room to the right in the Pasinger factory brings together works that are not quite up to the concept or are not up to par. After all, there are 37 positions – from freshers to master students. On the left you follow the content of the said process until it goes to the thing in the swimming pool. The world is full of beauty and blemish at the same time, life can be just as long a calm river as a daring leap into the water. This is reflected in the work. From meditative concepts to explosive action painting, from force fields to quiet zones, the works revolve around the starting point: that everyone is swimming in the same water. By the way: The picture of Kollar put the class after: Early in the morning in Müller’s Volksbad they were photographed by the photographer Roland Fischer.
Text Evelyn Vogel