"becoming intimate – a house exhibits publicly"

Concept, Curating and Organization by ICW, 2007

From November 30th to December 09th 2007 a whole house inhabited by families at the Gürtel, in Viennas traditional red light district, attracted attention. With the permanent installation „Fensterleuchten“ the windows of the house in direction to the Gürtel shone resplendent in selected colours.  Many of the 96.000 cardrivers passing this house daily were aware to the question who and what is hiden behind these walls. 

During that time span the building has become an artobject. Isabel Czerwenka-Wenkstetten, initiator and organizer of the project „becoming intimate – ein Haus stellt aus“ built so to speek a bridge between the outside of the street and the inside of the house together with fishpool – aquarium for art and social. The placement of art in daily live, in the public room with installations, visual arts, dance, literature, music and video, free for all, opens both interior and exterior spaces as well as interspaces. It offered the possibility to experience the building for the period of the project with its inhabitants and its history. The abundance of adventures and experiences drawed an astonishing picture from the daily life in this appartment building at the Gürtel. The art has become a copious room of encounter between the inside and the outside. 

„The foreign grey on the outside is colourful inside. This innovation of „art in the interspace“ should leave marks in a first step in a small context. Art is at least communication – and exactly this was what we wanted to create between guests and inhabitants. It is our effort to open a space for personal contacts, space for looking in more detail behind ostensive barriers and to dare something new to attain new perceptions together.“ (becoming intimate, ICW)