Eva Grubinger & Werner Feiersinger

This is a very private story and a very public one. Originally, it was a story of two friends, two artists, two conversation partners. In 2010, Eva Grubinger & Werner Feiersinger conceived a floating sculpture on the Danube, one of the great European rivers, which has carried people and goods for centuries. They called it Two Friends. It consisted of two black rafts connected by a mirror-like stainless steel beam that reflected the surroundings. The boats came from the Swiss Army and the beam from the legacy of minimalism, an inspiration for both sculptors. Together, they generated tension, irritation, a connection, a serene presence, a voyage without a destination. 

When we saw the documentation of the sculpture in the archive of Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Niederösterreich (KOERNOE or Public Art Lower Austria), we wondered if it could be revived in a very particular context in St. Pölten. Two Friends reappeared on one of the Viehofen Lakes as a floating counter-memorial.  

An area that now appears serenely recreational hides an unpleasant past. It is here that the Nazis operated two forced labour camps, one for Hungarian Jews and one for non-Jews, in 1944/45. The prisoners’ sand excavation work and the later gravel processing plant created the pits that now harbour the two lakes. Today, there is almost no trace of that tragic past, but an aerial photograph from 1945 acts as an orientation board—another KOERNOE project. 

In this context, the sculpture Two Friends gains new meanings. Besides connecting two human beings (and two Austrian artists), it also provides a monumental counterweight to that which lies underwater. By opposing the steel beam’s heaviness and the sand anchors’ gravity with its floating pneumatic rafts, the piece uses its materiality to evoke the tension of the unspoken memory. The beam mirrors the invisible landscape. By distorting the progressive, modernist paradigm of its idyllic setting it creates a more tangible connection to the iron industry that was built upon the extractive labour of the camp. But for some who see the sculpture from the observation tower erected here in 2006, it is perhaps still only a lonely pair of boats or a story of two friends. And this is fine; this is the power of art. We read what we can (or cannot) see. 

(Joanna Warsza & Lorena Moreno Vera)

Eva Grubinger

Eva Grubinger (1970, Salzburg) often takes existing forms and manipulates them, changing their scale, material, surfaces, context, etc., to expose hidden cultural forces. Eva Grubinger studied at the Berlin University of the Arts under VALIE EXPORT, Katharina Sieverding. Her work has been shown in numerous international exhibitions and in public space including Museumspavillon, Salzburg (2024), Malmö Kunstmuseum, Malmö (2024), Belvedere 21, Vienna (2022, 2019), mumok, Vienna (2021), Bloomberg Space, London (2016), Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2015), Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2014), Kunsthalle Wien (2015), Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipeh (2008), Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, Helsinki (2001), BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle (2003), Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2004), Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main. (2007), Museum der Moderne, Salzburg (2009), among others.

Werner Feiersinger

Werner Feiersinger (1966, Brixlegg) is a sculptor and photographer living in Vienna. He studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, had guest professorships at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon and teachrd at the Vienna University of Technology. The artist has realised numerous exhibitions and projects in public space, including at the Industrial Art Biennial (Istria), Belvedere 21, Secession Vienna, Galerie Martin Janda (Vienna), Salzburg Museum (Salzburg), Ferdinandeum, (Innsbruck), Schiavo Zoppeli Gallery (Milan). He is currently designing the exhibition installations for Fischer von Erlach at the Salzburg Museum (2023) and the Wien Museum (2024). Together with architect Martin Feiersinger, he researched post-war architecture in Northern Italy: the exhibitions Italomodern 1 (2011/12) & Italomodern 2 (2015/16) were organised at aut - architektur und tirol, Innsbruck, with several other international venues and accompanying publications.