A Line Describing the Surface

The artist (Brigitte Mahlknecht, Bolzano 1966, lives and works in Vienna) started out from this feeling of imprisonment to create the film of the same name, “The Cage”. Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Der Panther”, written in 1902 on occasion of a visit to the Jardin de Plantes in Paris, describes a panther moving wearily around behind bars.

Brigitte Mahlknecht’s animation takes inspiration from this to highlight the connection between the projected image and the architectural structure, and how they create a world, a story we are free to interpret as we wish. From the drawing to the animation, because the drawing is the artist’s starting point, like the image of the panther in the cage, or the portrait of the artist that gives rise to the film.