CANDY OR NOT
Hyrtlgasse 21, Vienna
2023
CANDY OR NOT
Glimpsed from the highway, Vienna seems like a big city.
For a brief moment, you have this possibility in your head.
Through a naturally grown accumulation of skyscrapers from different decades, it emerges as an idea – and disappears like a shadow in the night.
(Heiss Helmut, 14 October 2023, A23 Vienna towards Prague)
Material formations, curves above curves, and bent in different directions at the same time,
are rather related to the double helix – or the curvature of space-time – than to architecture and design.
A forced connection of parts,
without a catalyst
but under pressure
and with time.
A certain unease arises from the contrast between the razor-sharp precision – and the simplicity of the materials used.
In case of Candy or not candy, the Japanese TV show, the participants bite into objects, that are either made of sugar – or exactly what they represent. The purpose is not to question certainties, but solely the comic effect, the image created and the performative expression of the celebrities in the absurd situation.
The sculpture therefore has something to do with a moment
with a monument
and the question of correct use dosen’t apply
Here it’s obvious: this is paper. You might think that it is supposed to trick you into something real –
but that is misleading.
Appropriating the material, relating to it, personally and politically.
And the form derives from an object of everyday life.
Like falling for an advertisement
Capture the good life!
One possible reaction is the AHA-experience. Often frowned upon, it includes a moment of shock and reflection of your own position, and that can be uncomfortable.
But then there are some little traps and exaggerations, little jibes within the object.
Helmut Heiss copies his own cycling shoes and reconstructs them out of paper. This takes forever, it takes all the time in the world. Through the precision in the approach and the material properties of different types of paper exactly reflect the material of the original. Trying to achieve this level of precision creates errors and glitch-moments because they are no longer “true to themselves”. In order to represent something, you actually have to work out the essentials and are not to get lost in the details. In Helmut Heiss works, paradoxically, a critical compactness emerges, which makes now everything appear essential – like a parallel reality, something that shows the vulnerability of a symbol.
Thea Moeller
