Monumental-decorative Complex
installation of a free-standing object, two objects on the wall and a mirror, 2011
wood, varnish, mordant, gouache, mirror
Exhibition: “in effigie”
with
Oliver Laric
Anja Manfredi
Markus Proschek
Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair
Is it adequate to apply terms of a hierarchic relation between original and copy, object and its representation, to describe the referential features of an artwork?
Representations of representations: A gesture is always something that is performed or re-staged, persisting only through the repeated versions of its interpretation. Repetition enables “pervert reading”, emphasizing the difference from a conventional perception of the familiar gesture, converting it into something ambiguous and not yet classified. The already known as the precondition of the new.
Our bodies talk about the constructed behavior patterns of our “cultural environment” (Flusser), which is pervaded by diverse normative structures. Anja Manfredi investigates possibilities to break these patterns by means of photographic appropriation and collage.
Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair works with formal fragments of modernism and presents them detached from their original context, creating her own system of reference, deconstructing the formalistic claim for the integrity of these forms and their absolute fundamental quality.
In his video-essay VERSIONS Oliver Laric analyses the persistence of images through their variations and adaptations. He demonstrates the importance of reinterpretation for our visual culture, in which terms like originality are not relevant to describe the impact of an image.
For PART Markus Proschek, after recasting a monumental fascist sculpture, reused the mould to produce a partial reproduction, foiling the cold sterility of the androgynous body by shifting the material from bronze to soft beeswax, accentuating the bodily aspect of the iconoclastic gesture.
11. – 15. Mai 2011
Seidlgasse 14
Vienna