The 55-part installation Gesang der Schreitsockel [Song of the Walking-Pedestals] (1975/77) and the accompanying series of drawings from the collection of Museum of Modern Art Lucerne represent a major work by the German artist Franz Erhard Walther (b. 1959). To coincide with the exhibition in Lucerne, the installation will, in collaboration with the artist, be presented for the first time in a variable arrangement and in various different layouts.

Alongside this action-related interpretation, the ‘Gesang der Schreitsockel’ is also being shown in its stacked and stored arrangement. This concept of the ‘stored form’ designed by Walther lends a further level to the artistic work, and grants it its own autonomous work status. The 70 drawings that are part of the installation on the one hand visualize the various action and work-formation processes of the ‘Schreitsockel’, but on the other hand also function through their aesthetic expression as an autonomous art-work. As a result of the three publicly performed changes to the work and actions involving it, visitors have their first opportunity to participate actively in the core idea of the work, and rearrange and walk on it according to the artist’s guidelines. This challenge for the viewer to participate and the direct juxtaposition of the two states of the work in its variable arrangement and its ‘storage form’ means that the work’s different levels of action are put forward for discussion within the context of the exhibition.