'Fountain' at Glanzstoff
John Hill
16. October 2017
Photo: Tobias Pilz (All photographs courtesy of Studio Brigitte Kowanz)
On 15 September 2017 Brigitte Kowanz's Fountain at the old Glanzstoff factory in St. Pölten, Austria, was illuminated. The site-specific artwork is a permanent presence at the former industrial site.
Glanzstoff's production of tire yarns and other textile viscose yarns ceased in 2008, when a fire damaged the company's over 100-year-old plant. The memory of this production is celebrated in the curved line of light created by Brigitte Kowanz and her Viennese studio. The light construction emanates from the tip of one of the towers, arching upwards slightly before falling gently to the earth. Although simply a line, it is whimsical, projecting an optimistic future for the post-industrial place.
In the words of Peter Noever, who edited a book on Fountain:
Kowanz has made public what remained but had been cloaked in shadow, made it clear for all to see. She has given an area contaminated with specific, special memories a new horizon, expanding the fallow ground of its history by a great many new pages. Pages upon which can now be written, pages that offer space. Pages as yet empty.