zentrum
The elements in Margreiter's mobiles that comprise letters are scaled one to one with the now lost originals on the Brühlzentrum building. Suspended from cross-beams made from polished aluminium, they seldom align to form the shape of a letter: the sculptures consequently equivocate between word and image, information and abstraction. Although they reference both vernacular and fine art traditions – children's toys, design artefacts and modernist sculpture – they are best characterized in relation to the doyens of their genre: Alexander Calder's playful fantasies. In Calder's mobiles, delicate components are cantilevered asymmetrically so that their hand-drawn arcs overlap like the branches in a weeping willow. When a counterforce is required, an element is introduced that makes a sprightly surge upwards like a twig venturing skywards. Notwithstanding their apparent defiance of gravity through a series of deft deferrals, their behaviour seems completely "natural". By contrast, their appearance is best described as abstract, given that Calder restricted his palette to a few crisp, vivid hues. Clearly hand-made, these irregular planar elements are fixed in place in what appears to be makeshift fashion, as if the whole composition had been casually and quickly put together. However qualified, their allegiance is unquestionably to the organic; Margreiter's cleaves to the architectonic.
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(excerpt from Lynne Cooke 'Description', in: 'Dorit Margreiter. Description')
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