Five plows floating in the air mark the historic building complex of the Folk Life Museum in the former Capuchin monastery founded in 1913 and reopened in 2021.
Manfred Erjautz, whose mother worked as a sacristan in St. Anthony of Padua and who spent years of his youth in this complex, was invited to develop a work in and for the public space. After considerable research and thought, the artist finally decided to turn the plow, an implement of identification used in farming and one of the oldest machines in the history of human development, into an artifact.
The alienation of the material – these are aluminum casts of the wooden originals which got discarded from the museum inventory, “deaccessioned”– not only makes their operability impossible but also opens new impulses and perspectives.
As archaic objects from everyday agricultural life, plows propel themselves, along with our attention and interest, beyond today. Our perception of the familiar is questioned and challenged to sense something new.
Location:
Life Folk Museum
Paulustorgasse 11, 8010 Graz
47°04'29.8"N 15°26'23.5"E
