Heliane Wiesauer-Reiterer :
Division of a Cube [01]

The title of the eight-part stone sculpture Teilung eines Wurfels [01] (Division of a Cube [01]) provides entirely pragmatic information about the conditions of its production: Heliane Wiesauer-Reiterer had a one cubic metre serpentinite cube cut out of the primeval rock in Prägraten (East Tyrol) and divided into eight 50 x 50 x 50 centimetre cubes with only three cuts down the middle. The artist has now erected these cubes in Breitenfurt, in a circle with a seven metre diameter on a small patch of meadow close to the school. The addition [01] in the title is an indication that the artist has conceived this group of sculptures in Breitenfurt for the start of her project Orbit Cube_Earth Art [2012 ff.]. In this project cubic metre cubes are to be divided a number of times and the cubes so created spread all over the world. The erection of a circle was specially conceived for the Breitenfurt location and is by no means a pattern to be used for the global project. Each of these cubes is at the same time both an 'original' and a multiple. Accordingly, the cubes are to stand independently while forming an invisible network among themselves — as a globe-traversing installation. The dividing of the cube accords with an artistic principle that runs through the entire oeuvre of Heliane Wiesauer-Reiterer: "The term Teilung contains aesthetic, social, ethical and political dimensions and content, for me. Several smaller parts are generated by dividing a whole that take-up the energy, the synergies and a large radius of action. The space enlarges and extends its capacity."

In the art of Heliane Wiesauer-Reiterer, dividing also means a reduction to the essentials. The works are characterised by mutually dependent opposites, like reason and emotion, art and nature. They include paintings, sculptures, graphics and photographs. Wiesauer-Reiterer's basic subject matter is people and their existence, nature and space itself. As minimal as one of her works may appear, the path that led to it is a complex one. The artist's starting point is people and nature, and she returns there. Sometimes she is inscribed directly into the artwork by a gestural application of paint, sometimes she steps entirely into the background as the author. So the Breitenfurt sculpture has antecedents in conceptual art. Heliane Wiesauer-Reiterer does not feature as a classical sculptor in its production, one who works the stone themselves. She selected the stone herself in the quarry, and has the extraction and cutting done by others. Only a last fine honing and the engraving of the signature are done by the artist's hands. The gesture in the surface design is left to nature. For each cube is unique, with its numerous veins and inclusions. One could view this process as paradigmatic for the entire oeuvre of Heliane Wiesauer-Reiterer. Whatever she does, she reveals inner structures and renders them visible.
(Cornelia Offergeld)