Norbert Maringer :
Schaubühne-Sitzplatzskulptur Kalvarienberg

The Weinviertel-based artist Norbert Maringer has honed his gaze for special phenomena and peculiarities in nature. Like an archaelogist, he searches where others pass by, traces the concealed and highlights what he finds. He draws attention, creates links, establishes the scale and places in proportion. With minimal artistic interventions Maringer points a finger, sensitively, clearly, but also as an irritation. In Schönberg am Kamp he selected a former vine terrace below the Baroque crucifixion group for his artwork. The view inland from here is magnificent. The artist has used a very stringent formal solution to make the surrounding countryside into a stage. A sand-coloured concrete viewing terrace in the shape of a hyperbolic curve and with three rows of seats fits snugly into the slope, growing into the hill and connecting it to its surroundings. Maringer has quite deliberately not used explicitly natural materials for his intervention, but concrete and LED bulbs, technologically developed products of the Homo sapiens as a clear intervention in the God-given nature.
In contrast to the circle, the hyperbolic curve is directional. It guides the visitor's gaze and provides orientation, casting the gaze 'beyond the target' — the meaning of the Ancient Greek term hyper-ballein being 'above' and 'to throw'. Like in a painting by Caspar David Friedrich, the diminutive human being is contrasted with a formidable natural occurrence. The visitor is motivated to yield to the enjoyment of nature, to linger, to collect her/himself, "to become one", as Maringer says, "in spirit and soul".
(Christiane Krejs)