T.O. Immisch Kustos 'State Gallery Moritzburg' - County Art Museum Saxony­-Anhalt
Tension between Time and Eternity

The artist from Halle, Andreas Löschner-Gornau, has created in Dessau his 'Work of Temporary Art'. The rooms of the gallery 'Material Wares and Southern Fruit from Otto Koch' of the K.I.E.Z. membership corporation are no longer available, but Johanna Bartl is undeterred and con­tinuing to arrange exhibitions. The artists are now invited to create works specifically for cho­sen places or presently vacant rooms in the town Dessau. One of the artists recently invited was Andreas Löschner-Gornau from Halle. He himself chose a civic site which challenged him to react. He was led by his impression of dilapidation and desolation in the town area, which in turn was due to the breaks in tradition 1945 and 1989/90 and the contradiction between the new buildings and the old ones. The former had often been designed with no regard for the latter, which were decaying but had acquired through use a fascinating patina and life of the their own.
His attention was captured by the wall in the Ferdinand von Schill Strasse. the last relic of the former Leopold Barracks, or - to be more precise - by its free-standing edge. It marked quite literally a break, like many others which periods have left in the built surroundings. This mo­ment of discontinuity - of times, traditions, architectural styles and social relationships - is what Löschner-Gornau wanted to emphasise, clarify and (once more) reveal by artistic means. The edge of the wall was to be gilded.
He also intended to gild part of the wall and a roof-window of the house diagonally opposite on the corner. Its owner objected, as she wanted to have the building pulled down without any fuss, but the conflict became public. An association was founded to save the house, owing to its civic and historical significance, and it finally bought it. Hence the efforts of the artist led indirectly to art as social sculpture in the sense of Joseph Beuys.
Meanwhile Löschner-Gornau was left with his golden mean - meaning his space-time break on the barracks' wall. This work of art which, according to the time of day and the state of the sky, glimmers or flares, is to be torn down this year. But this time-limit lends the work from Bureau Otto Koch an especial charm. Designed for a certain place at a certain time, a cross between an exhibit and an installation, it presents the viewer with something out of the ordinary.
What Löschner-Gornau's mean is and may in the meantime mean is shown in no mean way by the title Golden Mean. This refers to the division of a line or surface in such a harmonious way that the ratio of the smaller part to the larger is the same as that of the larger to the whole. By gilding the mean break at the edge of the wall, the artist means to restore harmony to part of the town's mien for a certain time. Moreover his mean is a means to make mean miens meaningful and reflects not only the sun but also the principles of the Bauhaus in Dessau, a high school of formation meant to create wholes which are more than the sum of their parts i.e. forms well informed, formative and distinctive. But Löschner-Gornau's mean is also meant meanly to stand out grotesquely from its mean surroundings.
Insofar as he gilds not riches but wretches, not steens but stains, the artist means to use the golden mean more for the mean than for the golden and hence to be mean to the mighty.
The work is twofold in its technique and effect. Technically, surfaces in glossy leaf-gold are in contrast to others in matt powder-gold; and the contrast varies according to the time and the weather: In sunshine the glossy parts blaze, and in cloud the others stand out with a lingering glimmer. Löschner-Gornau's work is for passers-by, whom it captures en-passant, inviting them to reflect on its reflections. It is a means to reflect on eternity and time, on the golden and the mean, for he uses gold for the mean, not means for the golden, on a work whose end was plain from the beginning.