Felix [Maier] Siegl

"Notes on Stage Set" is the product of an ongoing research project into the artwork "Stage Set" (1991/1996) by Donald Judd. The concept for "Stage Set" originated in Trisha Brown's performance "Newark" (1987) and was later realised for an exhibition at the MAK Vienna. Today it stands as a gateway in Stadtpark steadily vanishing into plain sight. Note II tries to understand the imposing physicality "Stage Set" presents by replicating parts of it to scale. In changing the materiality, the installation breaks with the formal aesthetics of Judd’s Minimalism and questions the ideology of the autonomous work by removing it from the self-referential whole. Note III is a performative critique and transhistorical reactivation. Developed collectively (with Sophie Bartmann, Vale Essl, Mirjam Tsion Helminger, Lydia Kremshuber & Anatol Wetzer) it focuses on the underlying assumptions of space "Stage Set" holds in its current placement. Starting from bodily and sonic explorations at the site a series of movements and sounds translate its history and concept into different spatial contexts.