In The Horses Are Coming,
Christina Werner focuses on animal symbolism as a main visual and
staging strategy of National Socialism: Eagles, lions, horses and
sheepdogs functioned in the Third Reich as symbols of strength, purity
and order - codes that are still effective today: When Viktor Orbán
presents Austria with two horses as a "sign of friendship" in 2022 or
Herbert Kickl calls for the launch of a mounted police force, it becomes
clear how animal motifs continue to be used as strategic symbols in
right-wing and authoritarian narratives.
The work uses the technique of collage to visualise ideological
codes by fragmenting and rearranging historical image sources. It is
thus in the tradition of political art, such as the photomontages of
John Heartfield, who worked visually against the rise of fascism in the
1930s.
These strategies of visual refraction can also be found in the
installation's shiny blue and fragile neon lettering, which formulates
the sentence "Can you hear the horses? 'cause here they come." - a line
of text that oscillates between warning and announcement.
Nike Bekemeier, Curatorial Assistence, Westlicht Vienna
