Leopold Kessler :
Small Power Station in Allhartsberg

Leopold Kessler enjoys putting on blue overalls in order to use the guise of the technicians guild and whip the overloaded urban space back into shape. The continual regulation of public life is rendered visible by improvements or refined irritations. The brief for the intervention in Allhartsberg called for just the opposite. A concept was required for the abutment of a bridge, the remains of the old crossing between Allhartsberg and Kematen over the Ybbs river. A location that was once an important traffic junction now finds itself well off the beaten track. Leopold Kessler addresses the classical cliché of the interface between natural surroundings and civilisation. Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, a view into the distance of a wild, untouched natural expanse and then reaching for a can of Coke. A fizz and the refreshing taste of the artificial. Except that the stroller here stands on the edge of the leisurely ripple of the Ybbs, and the craving for refreshment is severely unhinged. It might rumble promisingly in the Coca-Cola machine set-up by Leopold Kessler on the abutment of the bridge, but it is a pretence. The sound is amplified from the machine on the opposite bank of the river, where the drink is now waiting for its consumer. And if the waiting is supposed to be in vain, a link is still re-established between the two banks, at least in the presence of the desire.
(Katrina Petter)