Elisabeth Schmirl, „Because
There Are So Many.“, 2023
Because There Are
So Many.
Mural and light installation by
Elisabeth Schmirl An
Art and Memory Project of the University of Graz
Handed over to the public on May 8, 2023
Location: Unicorn, Conference Deck, Schubertstraße
6a, Graz
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * “Because There Are So Many.”
Elisabeth Schmirl’s artwork turns the stairwell of the Unicorn,
which was opened in 2021 as the Start-up and Innovation Hub of the University
of Graz (planning: arge leb idris architektur/architect iris reiter),
into a multi-perspective space for encounter, remembrance and commemoration.
The building, which was erected in 1868/69, served as the headquarters
of Studentenwerk Graz, a chapter of the Reichsstudentenwerk Berlin, during
the Nazi era. Two National Socialist murals, which were contextualised
by an artistic intervention carried out by Richard Kriesche and Helmut
Konrad in 1997 and listed as a memorial in this combination in 2017, still
bear witness to this today.
The current art project “Because There Are So Many.” responds
to this heterogenous memory space with portraits and messages of a multitude
of contemporary and historical, real and fictional figures: “What
is on display are virtually unique murals printed in flat grey. They run
through the stairwell and manifest themselves between the first and second
floor in a group presentation. There, near the wall, users of the stairwell
can create multicoloured shadows with their bodies and connect with the
life-size, screen-printed groups.” (Elisabeth Schmirl)
The impetus for the artistically arranged images and texts was a collection
of around 70 historical and contemporary biographies of real people who
used to study, research or lecture, or do so now, at the University of
Graz. On the one hand, the protagonists are an expression of the university’s
pluralism; on the other, they were either victims of the National Socialist
policy of persecution or they have found refuge in Austria after fleeing
from regimes of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The biographical
research and interviews were conducted by students at the University of
Graz as part of two courses. The many voices involved in the project counter
ideologies of enforced conformity and intellectual narrow-mindedness,
from resentment down to contempt for humanity, with an image of solidarity
and lived diversity in social and university life.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
ROJECT GROUP
arge leb idris architecture/architect iris reiter: Jasmin Leb-Idris &
Jakob Leb
< rotor > centre for contemporary art: Margarethe Makovec &
Anton Lederer
University of Graz (Rector Dr. Peter Riedler, Unicorn, Center for Jewish
Studies, Department of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, Department
of Educational Sciences / Migration – Diversity – Education)
ARCHIVAL RESEARCH AND INTERVIEWS
Heimo Halbrainer, Brigitte Kukovetz, Judith Laister, Gerald Lamprecht
as lecturers with Wanda Deutsch, Marco Jandl, Andela Karac, Livia Kodritsch,
Lena Maierhofer, Heribert Macher-Kroisenbrunner, Nathalie Pollauf, Lena
Prehal, Hannah Stadler und Antonia Unterholzer as students
HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHIES
Litman Altman, Helmut Bader, Georg Barabás, Kurt Bermann, Israel-Joel
Cygielman, Alexander Emöd, Erwin Feuerstein, Henryk Eisig Fisch,
Salo Fischer, Eugen Ganz, Imre Groszman, Klara-Nina Gottlieb, Koloman
Gordin, Paul Grünwald, István Hamvas, Gerhard Haushalter,
Rudolf Hennefeld, David Herzog, Wolfgang Hepner, Hans Herlinger, Isak
Hirsch, Izrael Hochmann/Jerzy Horecki, Lisbeth Hochsinger/Hockey, Eva
Horowicz, Erwin György Jungreis, Kurt Kasner, Gisela Kaufmann, Ladislaus
Kohn, Zdenko Kraus, Kurt Kunewälder, Trude Lang, Stefan Lichtblau,
Sibylle Lichtenstein, Erwin Lipa, Otto Loewi, Viktor Loewi, Karl Löwinger,
Alois Mandel, Josef Markus, Siegmund Markus, Maks Pajewski, Eugen Pillischer,
Otto Pollak, Ernst Rachmuth, István Reich, Adela Reich, David Salomon
Riss, Fritz Röhr, Friedrich Rosenrauch, Hans Rottenstein, Erna Scheck,
Georg Schossberger, Ladislaus Schwarz, Norman Shefrin, Gustav Singer,
Grete Singer, Borys Smazanowicz, Szyja Tyger, Ellen Witrofsky
ART COMPETITION JURY
Christiane Kada, Judith Laister, Gerald Lamprecht, Jasmin Leb-Idris, Jakob
Leb,
Anton Lederer, Margarethe Makovec, Peter Riedler, Monika Sommer, Bernhard
Weber
PRODUCTION OF THE ART WORK
Elisabeth Schmirl with Agnes Urthaler-Jansa, Magdalena Berger, Isabell
Heigl, Stefan Heizinger, Vivien Nattrodt
