1st prize "Kunst auf dem Bergfeld" Poing (Munich)
Earth, concrete, grass
10 x 10 m
1992
Photo: Pachtner
Erdfeld
Earth Field
[1-2] In 1992 Dagmar Pachtner had already laid the foundations in her work "Erdfeld" for her future artistic career. On a piece of unused land, the Bergfeld near Poing, she marked out a piece 10 by 10 meters square, she raised it by piling earth up, like a theatre stage, on this she laid a square piece of grass 2 square meters in size. This piece of grass corresponded to a piece of concrete of the same size which lay next to it.
With this minimal artistic intervention, in which the procedural aspect played an important role, Pachtner made it possible to bring ones attention to something that was already present in the area. She reminded one on the microcosmic variety of the existing natural possibilities through the isolation caused by the artistic arrangement. The confrontation with the concrete block enabled the viewer to think about the negation of the illusion.
At the same time this square also changed into a sign. It contains the potency to make clear what Foucalt called "the finiteness of life". The untameable vitality, which is contained in the square, communicates the unending fullness within the frame and at the same time the experience of limitation. Dagmar Pachtner checked all aspects of her artistic composition to make sure all are suitable, whether a particle evokes a personal or cultural memory; in which she isolates it as in a picture and creates a metaphor with the artistic context which is contained in the artist's creation who, at the same time, retreats behind the installation.
Franz Schneider from "Teile einer Erinnerung" in the catalogue for the "Überschreitung", Pg. 15