What is a work title? He is a name or a name for a plant. The simplest form is, for example a portrait, "Portrait (from NN)" titled. Actually, everyone can see that it is a portrait, but only few know, who has represented the artist since. Or "Dead Mother", one of the major works of Karl Plattner. It is clear that this is a lying old lady. Theoretically, they could also be shown sleeping, perhaps as a nod to the approaching death. To understand that the sitter dead, and therefore also the mother of the artist, we need the title. "Rio de Janeiro" is the title of a painting by Charles Platt in 1952: it shows in the lower half of a horizontal rectangular arrangement of geometric shapes that represent the houses. In a mountain that is identified by the title of the Sugar Loaf - the symbol of Rio.
Plattner titles are essentially of this kind: you describe what you see and they give additional information that goes beyond the visible (dead mother). Apart from fulfilling an order book function: Are all the works of an artist called "Untitled", there is frequently allocation problems, as then only the extent (and to a certain proportion see the year) provide a clue for the identification.
Another situation is when it is in the works - dealing with highly abstract works of art - such as when an artist like Max Weiler. As allowed the title in the first place an idea of what it is about the artist. The title should guide the interpretation of behavior that takes the viewer towards the work.
A special situation exists in connection with photography before. "At this point, has to use the label ..." writes Walter Benjamin at the end of his treatise on the history of photography. He wants to say, although on a picture, everything is clear you can more or less (and in 1930 also could serve as proof that something has happened actually so), we need the title, explains when and where the photo was taken and what it represents. A change in the title can distort relationships and used manipulative. Roland Barthes writes that it is actually on each photo to react as one would point the finger at an object and say, "the one that has really existed since, it has happened to her."
time for the artist Othmar Prendergast has devised a special procedure. He is based on a list of titles of works by Karl Plattner, which - as I said - are relatively straightforward:
(...) 16 The Seamstress
17th HOUSES IN VAL
18th LANDSCAPE
19th WOMAN WITH CHILD AND VASE
20th Ox
21st CONVERSATION
22nd CAT
23rd WOMAN ON RED GROUND
24th DRAMATIC ENCOUNTER
25th LANDSCAPE
26th WOMEN HEAD
27th SEATED
28th WOMAN WITH MELON
29th MOTHER AND CHILD
30th OLD COUPLE
31st SHEEP
32nd SHOWCASE
33rd BALCONY
34th ENGEL
35th TWO BEEF
36th THE SIDE
37th BIRDS
A title such as "Woman on a red background" means actually just a picture of a woman against a red background. "Houses in Planeil" - a title that is not under the just mentioned - really shows a picturesque view of Planeil etc. How can you derive from this relatively simple relationship between image and title is now an interesting project? Because to such it is no doubt in Othmas Prenner Plattner track project in time. Prendergast, the method for naming simple: What happens if you specify only the title, show the image without it? What image do I assign it to a title? Prenner trick to make based on the different imaging methods, the image and text due to its natural properties. A picture shows a group of houses, just this and no other, regardless of whether this group of houses now exist in reality and whether it looks the same or not. The title "group homes", however, allows the presentation of all sorts of active groups of houses - here or elsewhere, now or in the past, in the village, in a city or a metropolis. Language is - if it does not use unique names - only a general framework that is general and abstract sense.
Prenner concept is therefore the separation of Plattner'schen title ahead of her paintings. What happened? It is now missing the real point of reference, it lacks the image that contain the service by producing a clear match. Choosing someone now the title of the image that he knows exactly what he is wearing a (more or less) accurate idea of the picture with him. Does anyone have a title simply chosen because of its sound without knowing the work, so it probably results in an idea which he then compares possibly even based on a list with the work Plattner, which is the subject of the title: he may be highly be pleased about his Presentation by replacing the real image or the image Plattnersche addition to at least put his own idea, so that two images coexist.
principle seems to be assumed that it Othmer Prendergast was a matter in time, a conceptual process trigger. Starting point for the work of an artist, the Vinschgau, especially in time, everyone knows and whose work enjoys great prestige. This familiar starting point, it allows the artist to intersperse with a significant number of roommates, and now stands at well over a hundred houses black headlines in the village. These texts (more precisely, work title) perform a multiple Function: they produce to a a reference to the work Plattner, on the other, they reveal an open space of imagination, which excludes every viewer differently, and finally, the scripture in their uniformity of the document image is an abstract-conceptual design element, which is the appearance of the village changed. The village is time for a conceptual work of art.
is crucial, however, that are involved in this work of art the people: not only allow, by that one particular font is installed on their house, but by embarking on a complex vision task that at one them more or about lesser-known starting point, to them but to carry into the open. This will not be at the end of their thinking changed. They are after all not just extras, but co-actors of the artistic process.
Andreas Hapkemeyer
lecturer in art history, Germanic and Cultural Management at the Universities of Innsbruck and Bolzano. Responsible for research on Museion. Board member of the International Foundation Manifesta (Amsterdam).
Othmar Prendergast
