It’s my third day in Vienna this time around and today Perola and I went to Palmenhaus restaurant to meet with some lawyers. I ordered the sea bass (a delight) and we discussed the qualifications we must meet in order to install our portals on the streets of the city for The Aces of Perception. The Aces of Perception is an interactive public art experience which has evolved out of The 13 Portals, a project Perola Bonfanti and I completed in New York City’s East Village last summer. The Aces will appear on the streets of Vienna this September.

Palmenhaus, Vienna

The restaurant of Palmenhaus is gorgeous. It’s right across from the famous Hofburg palace gardens and sits inside the the most beautiful greenhouse I’ve ever seen. In 1901 the architect Friedrich Ohman was commissioned to build the Palmenhous which now holds a butterfly sanctuary and one of Vienna’s most popular restaurants.

Look up!

Glass ceilings soar high above our heads and tropical palms bring us back to the freshness of Brazil as we sit with these lawyers to determine how we will need to construct our portals. 

Brainstorming bureaucratically correct ways to install the portals on the streets of Vienna.

Let me just say that Vienna is very bureaucratic. The portals must be no higher than this, no wider than that, they must be heavy enough so that people will not be able to carry them away, etc, etc. It’s a lot different doing the project in Vienna under the supervision of the city than on our own in NY. In New York, for the 13 Portals project, we simply asked shopkeepers and landlords for permission and installed the pieces.

However there is so much that makes this project even more exciting.

I will tell you all the things tomorrow~