veroniKATZEkova
“ausgANGSTür“
2023
Outdoor installation
Part of the exhibition “Das MUSEUM DER VERBORGENEN WÖRTER zu Gast im Stieglerhaus”
20. Juni – 1. September 2026
View Stieglerhaus, St. Stefan ob Steinz, Austria, 2026
Fear in Eden
An unknown force, time, nature, or the human factor has caused some of the letters on the sign on an exit door to fall off. From Ausgangstür, only Angst is left; the rest are scattered on the ground.
The German word Ausgangstür (exit door) contains another word: Angst (fear). It has always been there, unnoticed. “ausgANGSTür“ makes this hidden linguistic structure visible. This linguistic revelation shifts attention from architecture to psychology.
Installed in the idyllic garden of Stieglerhaus in St. Stefan ob Steinz—a place dedicated to art, culture, and education—the work enters into dialogue with its surroundings. The almost Paradisiacal garden evokes a sense of protection, familiarity, safety, home and the idea of a world that appears complete in itself. The intervention transforms this seemingly self-contained landscape into a conceptual space.
The exit door ceases to be merely a functional object. Standing alone in the open, the door separates nothing. Detached from any wall, it recalls the portals of science fiction—a teleporter, a gateway to another world. It stays there like a monument to the fear of the unknown.
In this sense, “ausgANGSTür” is less a door than a mechanism. It visualises the moment when fear begins to structure our perception of the world—when openness becomes exposure, the unfamiliar becomes a threat, and the horizon turns into a border. Read this way, the work reaches beyond the individual. It touches on the social and political consequences of fear: the desire to withdraw, to fortify, to define who belongs inside and who remains outside.
