Ausstellung Rathaus Aarau: Claudia Waldner - Aarelie`s Welt
(2014)

Aarelie's World in Aarau Town Hall
shows several installative memories of the performance figure Aarelie.
Claudia Waldner created the art figure Aarelie in 2009. A poetic play with the city of Aarau.
Aarelie is a free spirit and loves the color red. Time and again she appears unexpectedly in public spaces and plays with red objects. She involves people and pulls them out of their daily routine. Be it with a red balloon (Flugzug 2009), a red flower (Blumenschützen 2009), paving stones knitted in red (Einkleiden 2011) or many other strange objects.
Five installations were on display in the town hall exhibition, which included relics from Aarelie's world, such as the continuation of the newly paved Rathausgasse, with red stones dressed in wool, as well as video installations made from documentary material and new things about the artistic figure of Aarelie.
The video work Rundgang shows the view from a large red ball that Aarelie rolled through the city in 2010. In the whirling tracking shot, which feels like you are spinning in circles, historical roof gables, clouds, cobblestones and the green of the city park meadow alternate.
In a performance entitled Wasserschenken , which took place in March 2014, the figure distributed drinking water in glass goblets from all of Aarau's city fountains to passers-by. In the exhibition, a tall, narrow tower - a water feature - was then created from the 500 glasses filled with water. This work refers to the fountain Wasserspiel (1957) by the artist Peter Hächler (1922-1999), which is located on the second floor of the town hall.
With this exhibition, the figure of Aarelie disappeared and went on an indefinite world tour. What remained was the work "Dear Greetings", consisting of 500 hand-painted red postcards with greetings from countries and cities all over the world addressed to Aarau Town Hall. On the top floor you could see the light installation Daydreams from Aarelie's World. A memory. Performances. Shadow images of a whirring planet in broad daylight.
(Text: Excerpts: Press release of the Cultural Commission, City of Aarau, 2014)