Creeping Nuances

Marianne Lang explores space through drawing and careful examination of existing architecture. She directs our attention to specific features of buildings, intertwining different spatial domains: interior with exterior, private and public. Through her works, Marianne Lang engages with real spaces and existing architecture. She experiments with and diversifies techniques—for example, using an engraving tool for drawing or scratching ice crystals onto glass panels; in “Crystalline” (2011), she used a soldering iron to burn images into wood veneer; and in “Felimitat” (Imitation of Leather, 2013). In her series “Schattengewächs” (Shadow Plants), working on and within walls themselves, Lang selects unconventional forms of “drawing” in response to highly diverse spatial situations: her own studio, exhibition venues, her living room, and her artistic intervention at the Albertina Museum. The conceptual inspiration for this work comes from climbing plants, often used to green façades. Unlike plants that require supports for growth, these so-called self-clinging plants, such as ivy or Virginia creeper, have tendrils or specialized stems that attach to surfaces, allowing them to climb upwards. Gradually, the plant’s unrestrained growth envelops the building it climbs on, redefining the original architecture. The series of wall drawings seems to tell the story of the building. It also evokes the memory of a climbing plant that may have once grown here and, once removed, carried pieces of the wall with it. The drawing that remains is a residue, a shadowed remnant. The work is clear and precise in expression and form. It decorates, yet diverges from the literalism of its subject, offering greater possibilities for interpretation.