The Beethoven Frieze close up, as seen by conservators and artists
2012–2013
New construction + Extension
42 sqm
In 2012, to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Gustav Klimt, Gerwald Rockenschaub developed a platform for the room in the Secession in Vienna that contains the Beethoven Frieze. Called simply Plattform, this work offered visitors unfamiliar perspectives and new standpoints for the perception of this key work of Klimt’s.
Rockenschaub’s sculptural intervention made it possible to view the frieze, which runs around the room at a height of between three and five metres, at eye level for the first time. The two works, Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze and Rockenschaub’s Plattform, engaged each other in a dialogue between equals.
While the platform was utilitarian and functional, its object-like quality enabled it to assert itself as an independent work. Rockenschaub’s design shows numerous characteristics of his artistic idiom: the use of standard commercial building materials, monochrome surfaces, and a symbolic minimalism. With the Plattform in the Secession he continued a group of installations developed from the late 1980s onwards, in which by means of podiums, bench seats, curtains or partitions he directs visitors in the exhibition space, giving the architectural and social space a new coding.
The project was implemented by Jabornegg & Pálffy.
