welcome to my land of cream

Liza Dieckwisch - Kathrin Graf
periscope, Salzburg, 2025

Living:Space:Grant 2025
in cooperation with the artist-in-residence-programme of the City of Salzburg

Materials that drip, flow, foam, but also tear, evaporate, dry and glitter: for the exhibition at periscope, Liza Dieckwisch and Kathrin Graf have created a fleeting sugar-foam house inspired by Austrian cuisine with its diverse sweet pastries and egg dishes, such as foam rolls, cardinal slices and Kaiserschmarrn and, in particular, the light and fluffy Salzburger Nockerln.
The site-specific, ephemeral installation made of shaving foam, icing, gelatine, glycerine, lime paint and lacquer foil will change constantly over the course of the exhibition, conveying the two artists' open, fragile and flexible understanding of painting and sculpture.

The materials are combined with works made of printed fabrics (Liza Dieckwisch) and objects made of gelatine (Kathrin Graf), which overlap, overgrow and merge without ever reaching a final state. The transformation of the materials will continue until the end of the exhibition: the foam will evaporate, the icing and other materials will dissolve and mix, puddles of lime paint and icing will dry up, crystallise and form cracked surfaces. The artists themselves will allow themselves to be surprised by the different reactions of the materials.
The installation is multi-layered, gustatory and playful. It invites visitors to enjoy a sensual experience and is intended as a counterpoint to today's increasingly digitalised, controlled and security-conscious society.

As an interdisciplinary extension of the exhibition, a 13:35-minute audio track from the book ‘Schaum - Ein Cybertrip durch den Garten Erde’ (Foam - A Cybertrip through the Garden Earth) by author Anna Julian Mendlik will be played:
"In the mythological cosmos, the idea has been handed down that a Titan cut off the sky's penis because the Earth wanted it that way. The penis fell into the sea and the mixture of seawater, blood and semen foamed up. From the foam arose the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, born of foam. It is said that through her actions, ten years of war were ignited."

 
Supported by Ministry of Culture and Science of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.