“Inverted Window,” 2026, is a new aquisition, a permanent outdoor sculpture in the Viersen Sculpture Park; an exhibition running concurrently with the opening is taking place at the Viersen Municipal Gallery.

The work “Inverted Window,” created for the park of the Viersen Municipal Gallery, was developed in close collaboration with the Viersen Heritage Society, which donated the sculpture to the city of Viersen.
It refers to one of the bricked-up windows on the south side of the gallery. It alludes to the façade through a nearly 4-meter-high white façade panel, in which, however—unlike in the gallery’s façade—the open window space is left exposed,
from which a grid-like steel structure emerges. The grid references the joints in the brick facades of the district administration building—a contrast between the gallery’s neoclassical facade and the neighboring buildings from the 1980s.
The lattice structure thus simultaneously turns both the interior and the exterior space outward or inward. It is at the same time a transparent wall that allows the view through the window into the interior. The work thus refers to what remains concealed from us by the walling-off
of the gallery building, or to what might influence the gallery from the outside of the urban environment.
Beyond these site-specific, distinctly architectural aspects, the artist is also concerned, on a meta-level, with the question of what is public—and what is private. How are gaze and information being channeled and directed?

Is the sculpture’s interior—which is “still” open but barred—a sanctuary, or is it a space in which the confinement already feels like a prison? It raises the question of freedom—of democracy, which, as we are currently
experiencing all too vividly, is under threat. Under the guise of false promises or conspiracy myths, our society is in danger of losing its liberal and democratic values, as well as its diversity.

Accompanying the unveiling of “Inverted Window” is an exhibition at our Municipal Gallery. On display here are works related to the genesis of our sculpture. Based on photographic works of an interior sculpture
that Sabine Hornig developed in 2023 for the Kunsthalle in Tbilisi, Georgia, visitors will see a site-specific installation for our gallery, as well as the model of the sculpture, which served as the basis for the working group’s decision-making and for presenting the project.

Florian Peters Messer, Viersen Heritage Association