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Exhibition text to Greta Schödl: Street Poetry at Phileas, Vienna
Presented alongside the tenth edition of Art Basel in 1980, Straßenpoesie (‘street poetry’) stands as the most ephemeral yet successful example of Greta Schödl’s investigation of sculpture and performance in a public space. The work consists of small, square pieces of white paper with a circular hole in the centre. On each, the artist has handwritten the series title, while her name and address are neatly printed in one corner. In order to be activated, Straßenpoesie has to be tossed randomly on to the pavement; then, an unsuspecting passer-by must notice the oddly shaped paper and fix their gaze on it. The round shape of the hole mirrors the viewer’s pupil, linking the work to the act of seeing, while at the same time functioning as a sort of magnifying glass. Through the act of framing, any small, insignificant detail it happens to land on is given a new dignity, magically transformed into something more than it originally was. A small crack in the cement, a cigarette butt, a few blades of grass: by focusing on what usually slips the attention, the work effectively makes us slip, altering the rhythm of a walk and, with it, of thought. This interference in the usual flow of the street, together with its relational nature, defines the political potential of Straßenpoesie. Having previously experimented with crowd interaction in Tubo and Bidone (both 1978), Schödl is well aware that public spaces are shaped by an interweaving of many forces, both visible and invisible (she almost got arrested for littering soon after throwing the poems on the pavements of Basel). By disrupting the passer-by’s perception habits, Schödl shakes the given hierarchy of what, in our surroundings, is worth paying attention to. In this light, Straßenpoesie can be considered a delicate kind of monument, in the original etymology of the word, monere, ‘to remind’. A democratic reminder of spatial awareness, the work celebrates the glimmer hidden in small things, as well as the potential of a political and poetic sensitivity that resides in every inhabitant of the street.
* Greta Schödl – Straßenpoesie (1980)
* The poem and the stone carry equal weight (2024)
* Notes on Emily Fielding’s Documentation of a Field in Cheshire (2024)
* Cloud Traces (2024)
* We looked in vain at the darkness (2023)
* Reviews
* Interviews