schleudersitz

2010

Flying Objects, International Artexhibition on the Vineyard, Neustadt a.d. Donau (Germany)

Site: former vineyard, now a leisure park overlooking the Danube valley. Placing one of the local public benches in front of a bended pine tree.

Material: rubber, steel cable, wooden bench, paint

About:
Cornelia Konrads brings in her works mural crowns and tree trunks to fly. They rise and seem to drift weightless into the open space.

Here, on the vineyard stands her Schleudersitz. A romantic bench under a tree invites tired walkers to rest and contemplate the vast view. But the bench is stretched into a giant slingshot by a red rubber strap, ready to get shot right across the Danube Valley.

The ambivalence between illusion and desillusion, desire and danger, the dream to fly and the nightmare to fall, manifests in Cornelia Konrads’ work. Is this Schleudersitz a perfidious medieval punishment for outrageous aviators, who strive against a “god given” bound to earth? It also reminds to a contemporary tourist attraction, the “bungee jumping”. Though - by means of this nasty slingshot - turning the “kick” of it into something quite questionable. And in general: Isn’t there allways a threat to get catapulted all of a sudden from idyllic satisfaction into an unknown situation, to another place? Smooth landing not guaranteed?

Thomas Neumaier, Catalogue Flying Objects, Neustadt a.d. Donau (Germany) 2010