With each other

This year, Hungarian artist Dóra Maurer will transform the Ringturm in Vienna into a larger-than-life artwork called With each other.

The work: With each other
Entitled ‘With each other’, the 4,000 square metre artwork is made up of a total of 30 printed netting sheets, each around 3m wide and up to 63m long. Diagonally intersecting stripes in a spectrum of bright, cheerful colours trace a path across the facade of the buildings on the Ringstrasse boulevard, overlooking the Danube Canal, in Vienna city centre. Created especially for the wrapping of the Ringturm, the artwork’s origins go back to an elaborate system of geometric and chromatic elements devised by Dóra Maurer some 30 years ago, which she has continued to develop in the intervening years. “In my piece, various different colours dovetail together – a reference to the array of voices that characterise Central Europe. The vivid composition is designed to give the linear architecture of the Ringturm a dynamic edge, and to radiate colour from the building onto the surrounding area. A visual stimulus by the Danube Canal in summertime, but also an anchor that sends a signal of hope across national borders,” explained Dóra Maurer.

The artist: Dóra Maurer
Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein has commissioned Dóra Maurer to create the 2022 artistic covering of the Ringturm. A stand-out figure in Hungarian art history, more than virtually any other artist she is renowned for experimenting with new forms of expression that transcend the boundaries of design as well as national borders. An established proponent of Hungarian avant garde, she is best known for her geometric and often dazzling coloured structures, with which she asks tongue-in-cheek questions of her audience’s viewing habits. Born in Budapest in 1937, Dorá Maurer studied at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. Shows of her work have been staged at numerous exhibition venues around the world, most recently in 2019 with a retrospective at the Tate Modern in London. She is no stranger to a host of different genres and media – besides paintings, her oeuvre also includes graphic art, photography, film and installations. Her series, which address the ideas of geometry, colour theory and various theories of perception, are both playful experiments and scientific observations. Austria and its neighbour Hungary each play an integral part in Dóra Maurer’s biography: for decades, Vienna and Budapest were both points of departure for the artist’s creations; she has lived and worked in both cities by turns over the years.