Kathrin Siegrist

Kathrin Siegrist’s artistic practice, while rooted in painting, is concerned with textile. She is present at The Oracle with two pieces, one in Tivoli Park, in the vicinity of the Plečnik Auditorium, the other at the entrance of the Museum of Modern Art (MG+). Welcoming visitors into the venue, A Shade We Share II complements the Museum’s architecture and transforms the canopy into a space of reflection.

With the installation in Tivoli Park, she is interacting with a piece of Jože Plečnik’s legacy by entering a dialogue with the recently renovated Plečnik Auditorium, part of the axis he envisioned, which stretches along the Jakopič Promenade and also passes the Museum of Modern Art (MG+). This building was designed in the 1930s by one of Plečnik’s students, Edvard Ravnikar. Both left a significant mark on Ljubljana’s cityscape. Like in the work of his student, Plečnik’s influence can be felt in Siegrist’s intervention at the entrance to the building. The inverted pyramid echoes his view of this universal and eternal shape, following the Arab proverb that “man fears time, but time fears the pyramids”.

The installation’s defining feature is bright fabric – reused emergency parachute nylon. It is a material designed to endure, but even the slightest flaw renders it unusable. Once discarded, it is difficult to repurpose. Kathrin Siegrist colours the fabric piece by piece and uses it to construct installations that are in dialogue with their sites, open to interaction with their audience, and, when not safely within the walls of a museum, with entirely uncontrollable elements such as the weather.

Supported by Pro Helvetia, Pfyl Stiftung, Erna und Curt Burgauer Stiftung, Kunstkredit Basel-Stadt and Gemeinde Riehen.