Beziehungskiste ("Romantic Entanglements" or "more of a bind than a tie")
Sabine Schaschl

… Julie Hayward’s sculpture group "Beziehungskiste" ("Romantic Entanglements" or "more of a bind than a tie"), which could also be titled "Marriage Machine", is different from the other works that were created on location at GriffnerHaus AG or in reference to the processes taking place there, as it is based on an already existing drawing. Drawings generally play an important role in the artist’s sculptural work as a point of departure. In the act of drawing the artist is able to express on paper emotions in an immediate and spontaneous way, which then later become part of the sculpture in question. The decision to implement a specific drawing from her repertory is, however, directly related to the products manufactured by the GriffnerHaus AG company. As in other works by the artist the state of being at home and emotionally relating to home plays a central role. The sculpture group in Griffen has to do with couples as alluded to in both possible titles. They recall a sort of machine-like process in which the machine presses two parts into a mold and then packages them if they do not retreat to their own "islands". The oval, flap-like pieces can, paradoxically, also be found in the small plastic pieces in the GriffnerHaus production department. In Hayward’s sculptures these pieces can reappear both as negative forms that have been cut out with a saw and as positive pieces. They embody something human, and more explicitly refer to the question of the individual being stamped, shaped and influenced by being in a relationship.

Hayward’s sculptures are certainly to be read with a grain of salt. The box as an archetypical form of housing and the oval shapes, equipped with two lobes, as proxies for human action play ironically with psychological aspects. For the first time the sculpture is reduced to the minimum. As opposed to previous sculpture Hayward here does without all the plush, round and soft forms.


Published in:
catalogue XYZ², GriffnerHaus, on the occasion of the Symposium Griffen 2006
Mel edition Vienna