Alfred Lenz

Studenzen, a cadastral community of around 700 inhabitants in the district of Southeast Styria, approximately 30 kilometers east of Graz, is located along Landstrasse 201 (State Road 201), which today carries the majority of commuter and express traffic – around 22,000 cars and trucks every day. Directly on this road at No. 99 stands Alfred Lenz’s home, built in the 1970s to meet the family’s needs. Lenz has been using the outbuilding as an experimental recording studio since 2007 and attached a storage tent to the garage in 2017.

Since 2021, in cooperation with the Institute for Art in Public Space Styria, he has been developing a specific art production field under the title L201, transforming the approximately 28 m2-large entrance and exit area in front of his home – a non-place in the archetypal sense – into an exhibition space. A semi-transparent structure obscures the separation between the private and public realms, crossing the boundaries between architecture, design and art. As a permeable backdrop, a three-wing, adjustable metal grid installation develops an art space and stage that can always be more, stripped of any unambiguity, to open the character of the provisional and changeable as an idea of the possible. Based on his interest in the strategic transformation of non-places, Lenz does not ignore the surroundings, but rather breaks through real and imaginary fences and barriers erected due to increasing exclusion and withdrawal tendencies to establish fields of dialogue instead. With the involvement of all road users, the exhibitions, performances, and concerts enable investigations of the world.

To that effect, L201 was further developed in 2022 and utilized as a venue. The thujas next to the art space were removed and replaced with a metal grid wall eight meters wide and four meters high. This wall thus becomes an advertising space or, better said, an alternative to advertising billboards on highly frequented roads. By displaying banners designed by artists, the potential of countless passing vehicles is used to convey artistic messages without having to meet capitalist demands.

In 2023, the art space was extended to the opposite side of the street by means of a stair-like sculpture built by Hans Schabus in the form of a grandstand, thereby making an additional setting accessible. A temporary speed limit of 30 km/h opened axes of vision, action and concentration that once again question private and public space and allow them to react to one another.

In 2024, another metamorphosis is taking place: The screen-like metal grid walls in the driveway will mutate into a cow shelter and be placed on the other side of the house. Additional objects will arise there, such as a drinking trough, a manger and a fence, which are both sculpturally legible and usable for the animals. The artist Lukas Weithas, who has many years of experience as a herdsman and dairyman on a Swiss alpine pasture, will look after the animals.

On the front side, opposite the continuous metal grid wall, now on the inside of the property, is Hans Schabus’s grandstand, which was built in 2023. From here the view is directed over a biodiverse field, designed by Gabriele Sturm and serving as a stage for performances, concerts and activities, to the street behind it.

The artist will regularly examine the vegetation and soil, carry out analyses based on conversations with neighbors, and observe and accompany the newly emerging vegetation on the ground. Flora and fauna become the protagonists of the project in their autarchy and in juxtaposition to the habitat cultivated by humans.

Under the title CARE, Gabriele Sturm, Lukas Weithas and Alfred Lenz will visibly raise questions about cycles, welfare, care, cooperation, worries, dependencies, nature and culture in a ten-day action on this small farm that has fallen out of time.