Come Quando Fuori Piove

A mnemonic phrase used in Italy to memorize the hierarchy of the pokercard symbols, Cuori Quadri Fiori Picche which is Hearts Diamonds Clubs and Spades, providing the title to Sebastian Lettner's sculptural installation. Poker comes to mind while you are looking down at the „well“ and your own reflection underneath a pendulum which points on a single card, the Ace Diamond; always useful if you have it up your sleeve, as they say. But what are we gambling for here and what's the stake of the game? A sword of Damocles swinging above our own faces? It's the spectator that decides how much swing he wants to give to the installation, activating the space, raising questions about time and chance.

As long as I can hold my breath

Two polaroids taken many years ago a few minutes apart. One image blurred, the other in focus showing the branches and leaves of a tree in a slightly different detail. A piece of blue sky, a sunny day, a memory and the attempt to capture it. We hold our breath when we try to keep still, when we want to concentrate, a moment of heightened attention. Even when we dive underwater, we hold our breath. It is such a moment, when you are lying beneath the branches and it feels like being underwater, the rustling of the leaves like the sound of the waves, images that overlap and become blurred in our minds. But which of the two images shows the memory better or does it lie exactly between both of them ? The impressions of a journey or a moment in time are strongest in the memories, not in the photos. When you mentally go back to certain places, which are always a bit all the places you have been to.