[...] in the area between the logical concept and the emotional experience lies that inexplicable difference that the artistic act aims at. it is the surreal moment in the methodical number game and the methodical moment in surreal design that fascinates dora maurer and that she uses as a means to convey her insights into the relationships and behaviors that make us up.
as part of the buchberger raumkonzepte, dora maurer created a room painting in 1982 in the romanesque keep of schloss buchberg am kamp (austria), which includes the walls, vaults and floor. this portfolio was created from that project. the basis of this project is the 'displacement' series, which has been developed since the early 1970s: the systematic shifting of eight diagonally striped color rectangles over a basic grid (four warm and four cold shades) results in a variety of interlocking colors. maurer calls subjectively selected excerpts from individual steps in this process 'quasi-pictures'. in the sense of the “shaped canvas”, they can have irregular outlines, with their shape and color structure remaining open on all sides. the buchberg room is also such a 'quasi-picture', but in this case it is designed as a found, spatial combination of differently shaped surfaces:
[...] on the seventieth step of the 'displacement series' (sheet i), maurer laid the room boundaries flat so that the diagonal of the floor coincided with that of the basic grid (sheet ii). the resulting distribution of the colored stripes on the boundary surfaces of the room was transferred to the wall and vaulted areas and to the floor without any further intervention (sheet iii photo): the spatial arrangement of the sub-areas breaks up the interrelationship of the forms that is still visible in the surface projection. the simple, large-scale order of the groin-vaulted room enters into a tense relationship with the small-scale order of the colored stripes. the result is a sphere, the character of which is determined by the interference of the color system, the form system and the spatial system. the resulting absurd spatial situation grabs the viewer with its aggressive effect; it fascinates him with an abundance of different color and shape constellations through optical stimulation and through the illusion of perspective. space moves, expands, contracts, vibrates. [...]
dieter bogner, 1983 (excerpt, translation from the original german by robert b. roger, 2021)
