Take a Seat
Opening: 26 March 2025, 10:00
Location: Office for Youth and Family, Kaiserfeldgasse 25, Graz

Artists:
Paul Lässer and Eve Prechtl

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A piece of wooden furniture stood in front of the entrance to the Office for Youth and Family for many years. At any time of year, it was a place of communication, a place to pause and also a place to rest. People ate their snacks, drank their coffee and often just sat there because they wanted to rest or because they were waiting for an appointment at the Youth and Family Office. The furniture was getting on in years - time for something new!

Paul Lässer and Eve Prechtl, two young artists from Graz, have created a group of larger-than-life figures. Due to their size and the large number of sitting possibilities facing each other, they will be a place of communication for more people than before.

The two artists have given the figures - as they describe their work themselves - a body language of casual togetherness that people adopt when they are sitting or lying on the grass in the park, for example. The larger-than-life size allows adults to experience the perspective of children.

New sculptures in public spaces are rare, the existing ones are often enthroned on high pedestals. Paul Lässer and Eve Prechtl deliberately wanted to take a different approach. They see the "Sitz-Ries:innen" [seat giants] in front of the office as an invitation to everyone to climb them and sit on them - and so the figures themselves become a kind of pedestal or stage for those who sit on them.

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COOPERATION

After the airy sculpture "Wolke" by Adina Camhy and Coline Robin and the photo installation "Spur" by Christine Winkler, the sitting figures "Take a Seat" are the third art project jointly initiated and developed by the Graz Office for Youth and Family, the Styrian Society for Cultural Policy and <rotor>.

We would like to thank City of Design, the Department of Public Space Design in Urban Planning and Holding Graz for their logistical support.
We would also like to thank the company Tlakovci Podlesnik for carrying out the concrete casting, and the Roter Keil collective in whose workshop the project was created.

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