Adjust to the outdoor temperature

Die Fünfte Säule, secession,

Viena, AT

Adjust to the outdoor temperature, Intervention, September 2011

To match the temperature of the exhibition space to the outside temperature daily, using the existing air conditioning or heating system.

The historic Secession Building in Vienna hosts an exhibition about the building itself. The main hall is considered the first ‘white cube’ in the history of art. Its glass ceiling filters the natural light but makes insulation difficult. It emphasizes the filtering by removing the difference between the temperature inside the space and the weather in the city and physically affects the exhibition’s reception.

The intervention is labeled inside the gallery and complemented by adding a new item to the official website, displaying the room’s current temperature. The information is updated three times a day, and clicking on it leads to an online list of the temperature data collected over time.

Section and floor plan of the exhibition hall where the intervention takes place.

Detail of the temperature control device inside and outside the room.

Screenshots of the Secession 2011 website. Intervention on the home page menu and temperature listing page.

PDF (DE) Temperature final list

Exhibiton view at “An exhibition hall, a chapel, a river, a theater, a plot, a square, a library”, García Galería, Madrid, 2016.

29,8 – 10,0.C. Der Aussentemperatur angleichen, Secession, Vienna.
Exhibition catalog and signed and stamped documents. Digital print on paper.
4 elements, 21 x 29,7 cm each.
2011

Photographic documentation: Mario Heuschober

Web programming: Christina Goestl

This proposal took place in the framework of Die Fünfte Säule, group show curated by Moritz Küng at Secession, Viena, 2011, with works by Peter Downsbrough, Dora Garcia, Guillaume Leblon, Joëlle Tuerlinckx, Cerith Wyn Evans, Heimo Zobernig as well as Adolf Krischanitz, Moritz Küng, Ferdinand Schmatz and Margherita Spiluttini.

Catalog (DE, ENG) Die Fünfte Säule,Secesion, 2011 Text by Moritz Küng: “The Exhibition as Revertive Construction”.