4 The present catalog documents Johannes Angerbauer 's artist ic processes at the Zürich internationa l Art Fa ir in October 1995. With the background of the work and personality of Josef Beuys as phenotypica l ly laid out in his Erweiterung des Kunstbegriffes (Expanding the Concept of Art}, and the corresponding logical conclusions concerning definitions of art. artists, and categories of artworks, Johannes Angerbauer l,as been operating for years in a complex artistic fie ld wh ich has reference to social real ities. Accordingly, his present project in Zürich, structured in sequences and with the specific use of gold , is li nked to previous activities , and again embraces an individually conceived content as a starting point for the artist ' s intended ritua l. Each person becomes involved in tl,e work (wooden pane ls covered with go ld leaf, lyi ng on t he ground like thresl,o lds) by tread ing upon it, leaving traces of scraped-away gold partially expos ing pictures and text conta ined beneath. Basica ll y, the proj ect's stages are li nked by Angerbauer's choice of meaningful implications ; the project presents itself to the beholder as the artist ' s execution in a public space , that is, as an installation to be walked upon. Later, the individual "minefields " will bear witness to that as a result of the process, its sequences and overall concept ion will remain sole ly in existing documentation (therefore the cata log itself is an integra l element of t l,e process!). Angerbauer dea ls with fundamenta l questions of human existence and socia l interaction, aside from problems re levant to society as a whole, as he did in one Züricl, action, an i llustration of the hand of a former inmate of a concentrat ion camp. He does not attempt to do tl, is in a superficial or moralistic manner, but rather tries with his picture-content suggestibi lity to evoke reflections in the individual (the go ld in the minefields also reflects the "wa lker") on the socia l reality of being human . The visitor treading upon the thresho lds abrades the t hi n gold lamina , thus through his own action initiating creation of the pictures and inadvertently approaching the pictures content. In his "Art " procedure , Jol,annes Angerbauer reveals individual and co llective human consciousness; traces of his cr it ica l reflections wi ll be left in in t l,e observer !,im- or herse lf.
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