“Portrait of a Straight Line” by Anna Wohlgemuth is an immersive installation that combines elements of literature, theater, and visual art. The starting point of this project was an exploration of the straight line. Straight lines stand for directness, rationality, and efficiency. Their clear form even became the namesake for a character trait: straightforwardness.

The straight line is a cultural concept that appears only in human designs. It is hardly surprising that straight lines were also of central importance for the geographical mapping of the world. The novel Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann served as the conceptual anchor for the project research and appears fragmentarily throughout the exhibition space.

The interplay of colors and materials as well as the use of lighting atmospheres runs throughout the rooms. Lines become surfaces, which ultimately come together again to form bodies. The engagement with geometric shapes leads, against the background of the novel, to an abstract reflection on landscapes. Instead of a classical exhibition arrangement with photographs, paintings, and sculptures, the atmospheric staging of the rooms becomes the actual artwork. Those moving through the space embark on a journey with views of art-historical formations: The black square, visible on the front wall of the main room, for example, already appeared prominently in art history as an icon of the Russian avant-garde by Kazimir Malevich. The color gradients on the upper floor, with their clear horizontal orientation, recall the transition between land and sea—or the dynamic interpretation of a painting by Mark Rothko.

Anna Wohlgemuth is a set designer and scenographer. She mainly works for theater and dance productions. The spaces she creates are always designed for interaction with people—mostly dancers and actors. When the space becomes a walk-in artwork, the spatial boundaries between artistic work and its context dissolve. Every visitor becomes a mobile element of the entire setting. Anna Wohlgemuth describes her role as the “final puzzle piece” that completes the installation. For what would theater be, what would art be, without its viewers?

Anna Wohlgemuth (*1987 in Schliers) lives and works as a scenographer and set designer in Zurich. She received the Roman-Clemens Prize in 2015 for her scenography for i-GOD or How I Learned to Love Sin.

Curator: Julian Denzler