Dóra Maurer at the Ringturm, Vienna

Dóra Maurer is the second Hungarian artist to be commissioned with the wrapping of the landmark office building on Schottenring, following in the footsteps of László Fehér in 2012. The Ringturm is a flagship cultural project of Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein, the main shareholder of the Vienna Insurance Group. Constructed from 1953–55, it represents the country’s cultural plurality amid tensions between Hungary and the Soviet Union.

Entitled With One Another, Maurer’s work is composed of 30 printed netting sheets, which collectively measure 4,000 m², tracing the façade overlooking the Danube Canal with intersecting stripes in a spectrum of bright colours. The installation’s fields of intersecting colour stem from the artist’s ‘Quod Libet’ works of the 1990s, which she subsequently developed in the ‘IXEK’ series, the title of which refers to the Hungarian plural word for the letter ‘x’.

As Maurer states of this new commission: ‘In my piece, various different colours dovetail together – a reference to the array of voices that characterise Central Europe. The vivid composition is designed to give the linear architecture of the Ringturm a dynamic edge, and to radiate colour from the building onto the surrounding area. A visual stimulus by the Danube Canal in summertime, but also an anchor that sends a signal of hope across national borders.’