Werner Reiterer

Werner Reiterer’s Corona sculpture consists of a 17,000 kg sphere made of iron and heavy concrete with a diameter of two meters. It makes reference to the sudden emergence of the virus, its creeping disappearance and the potential oblivion associated with it, which has already erased pandemics of the past from our collective memory.

Penetrating into the soil, the sculpture metaphorically visualizes the manner by which a virus enters the human cell. Viruses are up to 1,000 times smaller in size than human cells and have no metabolism. That is why they invade cells and use their structure to multiply. This infection process, which in reality eludes our sight due to its microscopic tininess, turns into a supposedly observable image in Reiterer’s artistic formulation.

Like a virus, the sphere will completely sink into the target body — the human or the soil — with the difference being that the sculpture will need around 100 years to complete the process. This metaphorical parallel is made possible by the material nature of our planet, which accumulates materials with a high specific weight in the Earth’s core and less heavy substances on the Earth’s surface. This phenomenon of gravitational force explains why the Earth has a core made of iron and thus a magnetic field, which constitutes the basis of existence for us and all other living beings.

Through the penetration of the sphere into the Earth, the aspect of remembering, respectively, forgetting, is addressed. The last global pandemic struck our planet from 1918 to1920 in the form of the Spanish flu, which killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. Until the outbreak of the latest pandemic, very few people were aware of this historic catastrophe. The gradual process of forgetting can be experienced plastically as the sculpture sinks into the ground. Once they disappear, both the pandemic and the sphere will either remain anchored in the memories of our descendants or fade into oblivion.

Location:

Stadtpark Leibnitz, 8430 Leibnitz
46°46'44.6"N 15°31'45.0"E