photo by Eva Würdinger
Hotel Waldhaus
Hotel Waldhaus is a site specific installation made for the exhibition lesen [Literatur] in Kunstraum
NOE in Vienna. Behind the walls of the white cube there is a 15 meter long, 4 meter
high and 1 meter bright tunnel with four high windows to the street, the shaft with electricity
plugs lays all along the floor. Long nails sticking out of the wall, slippery metal plates and
randomly placed wooden boards create a hostile environment.
Out of one window opening, a cold white light illuminates an artificial plant bouquet in a
vase. The plants have been arranged according to Biedermeier-style flower paintings by
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller. The illuminated object inside the tunnel enables a strong perception
of the space whilst creating an uncanny feeling of rawness.

The exhibition lesen [Literatur][reading [literature]] focuses on the books with texts by twelve
authors read and selected by twelve artists. Twelve short text quotations in the original language
form the basis of each artistic work conceived for the exhibition.
Attempts at an atmospheric approach, not appropriation and not illustration. Related
sounds, contacts regarding content, concrete, abstract, poetic. Connections that cannot be
didactically decoded.
Hotel Waldhaus is dedicated to the 1978 homonymous short story by Thomas Bernhard
published in the book Stimmenimitator.

Artists and authors
Assunta Abd El Azim Mohamed / Christine Lavant, Hugo Canoilas / Malcolm Lowry, Clemens
Denk / Friederike Mayröcker, Petra Egg /Julio Cortázar, Simon Häussle / F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Barbara Kapusta / Audre Lorde, Ute Müller / Gertrude Stein,
Annelies Oberdanner / Birgit Schwaner, Bernhard Rappold / Jörg Fauser,
Dorothea Trappel / Ernst Jandl, Jakub Vrba / Thomas Bernhard, Flora Watzal / Marianne-
Fritz

Concept:
Ingeborg Strobl
Installation (artificial flowers, flower vase, 6 x cold white light tube, text, spotlight)
photo by Esel Lorenz Seidler
start