Lumen Zine Issue 15: Heidi Specker

“Five lions line the path through Sternenpassage (Star Passage) in Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier (museum complex). At the same time, they guard the way from the old city centre to the new districts in Gera, Germany. Strictly speaking, there are two lions, but photography can multiply anything. Berlin sculptor Stefan Horota (1932 – 2024) had carved them out of sandstone in the 1970s, but they are not the upright, powerful guards that usually guard entrances, but resting sentinels. They lie still on their pedestals, looking towards the passengers in a docile way.
Heidi Specker photographed them from up close, fitting their big friendly faces into the tondi of Star Passage. The various perspectives on the figures, the varying sizes of their mouths, the reflection of one of the two motifs as well as the pictures’ desaturation to greyscale, to the colour of stone, determine the transfer from sculpture to photograph.“
Ruth Horak

In its capacity as a micromuseum, MuseumQuartier Vienna’s Sternenpassage highlights artists whose work broadly relates to photography. Each resulting series is presented across five illuminated circular display cases mounted on the walls. Lumen Zine is a miniature catalog supplementing exhibitions at Sternenpassage.