KUNSTVEREIN EISENSTADT
love letters
Rosa Anschütz, Lisa Holzer, Robin Waart
curated by: Monika Georgieva
love letters is the outcome of thinking about the intimate gesture of receiving a letter and of turning it into something to be experienced collectively. Reflecting on the letter as an exhibition form in itself, the show imagines the architecture of Kunstverein Eisenstadt as the folded sides of an envelope. Words, language, and text, whether written or spoken, as well as an ongoing engagement with the tactile and the personal are sometimes used by Rosa Anschütz, Lisa Holzer and Robin Waart as tools to inform and accompany a physical work. And sometimes these tools become the work itself.
What I find curious about analogue letters is that they can carry not only written messages, but also any object flat enough to fit into an envelope. A folded piece of paper, holding a picture on the inside; a pressed four-leaf clover; a handful of sand from the beach. There are hardly any media that cannot be contained in a letter. Photography, drawing, object, text. Scent, too, of course; I bet you have at least once sprayed some perfume on a piece of paper before writing a little love note on it. People have even invented a way to add sound to a letter—remember those cards you open and a melody starts to play? Receiving and opening a letter feels very special, intimate. A small collection of objects and texts sealed in an envelope dedicated only to you. You hold it in your hands, you tear it open, you keep it.
The first love letter I ever gave to someone was in preschool, to my first childhood crush. The thing was, I couldn’t really write yet, so I had to express most of my feelings by drawing. He, on the other hand, wrote down his messages, sealed them in an envelope, and bravely handed them to me. The next day I would do the same, with my drawing response. The exchange of these innocent letters was our only form of communication. Now, years later, I find it fascinating to think of this interaction reduced only to the two media each of us felt comfortable with: drawing and text. But at the time this was never questioned. Instead this form of communicating felt natural— probably because a love letter is stripped of the responsibilities of an ordinary letter. It doesn’t have to follow any particular logic, it doesn’t even have to be informative. We learn at school how to write a letter correctly, different languages have different standards and formats. Heading, greeting, body, closing, signature. The structure of a love letter is something we invent ourselves.
But are love letters only limited to being written on paper and sealed in an envelope? Can one send a love letter to a place, to a garden? And can one receive a love letter on the façade of a building, or on a passing lorry? Can a love letter wait patiently somewhere for you to find it? Dedicated only to you and only to whoever needs it at that particular moment.
Text: Monika Georgieva