Josef Schwaiger
:
Rainbow’s End
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Josef Schwaiger added another level to the roundabout in St. Valentin with a work that oscillates poetically between technology, function, and aesthetics. Encircling the roundabout is a steel ring that functions as a formal and material extension of a common guardrail, but which has been coated with an interference paint to create a "color travel" effect that evokes mobility and movement. Depending on their trajectory when passing by, viewers notice how the colors shift from silver to gold to green to turquoise to violet. In his design, Josef Schwaiger also took into account the different access points to the roundabout by creating a slight tilt that offers different points of view, depending on viewers’ routes of entry and departure. For example, "Rainbow’s End" can be viewed in full when approaching the roundabout from Ennsdorf, but when approaching from Strengberg, part of the object slowly disappears then becomes visible again when continuing on.
"The primary artistic objective behind designing the roundabout in St. Valentin is to fulfill its primary function of a traffic junction. The leitmotif of ‘Rainbow’s End’ – a symbolic title which refers to the changing colors – is its ability to make its function, logical construction, and the technology involved in the work perceptible. Other decisive motifs of the design are its clear construction, transparency, openness, sequencing, and shaping of the roundabout area. It is not fashionably extravagant; rather, the poetic construction of the steel guardrail roundabout shines through. In today’s world of an ‘institutionalized avant-garde,’ we should appreciate the advantages and the enjoyment to be found in an open dialog with clear forms; beauty lies in the way we approach familiar, classic, tectonic regularity. ‘Rainbow’s End’ is a free-form object developed from the clearly formulated geometry of the roundabout’s layout, tectonic construction, potential symbolism, and dynamic and constantly changing colors." (Leopold Kogler)
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