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Esra Ersen is interested in the formation of identity and its transformation in different contexts or power structures. Her work “Carousel” shown in the exhibition tanzimat (Augarten Contemporary 21.1.2010 - 16.5.2010) was produced with high school students from Cologne. Ersen asked the students to model Turkish heads out of clay.

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Gulsun Karamustafa is a contemporary artist and film maker from Turkey. In 2009 she was the artist in residence at the Augarten Contemporary in Vienna. For the exhibition tanzimat (Augarten Contemporary 21.1.2010 - 16.5.2010) she produced a new piece entitled “modernity unveiled/interweaving histories”. In the interview with CYA Karamustafa talks about this piece.

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Franz Kapfer is an artist from Austria. His interest lies in patterns of representation.
In his work “Trophies” in exhibition tanzimat (Augarten Contemporary 21.1.2010 - 16.5.2010) he examines cliché representations of Turkish motives in Austrian architecture.

What would a virtual world be like without computers? The artist Johannes Deutsch tries to make the answers to this question tangible through his art project, “The Invisible Garden”. Located in the outdoor park area of the Museum Stift Admont, the interactive garden world of the media artist has been growing for two years as part of the museum’s “Made for Admont” series, and offers a feast of feeling, smelling, and hearing experiences to the visitors of the museum.

The idea for the garden developed at a time when the artist was planning an interactive television world for the West German Broadcasting Corporation. Johannes Deutsch approached this project with the structure of a new world and the possibilities of its development in mind. He is fascinated by the question of how we derive our conception of the world on the basis of perception, sense, and knowledge processing, not only within the virtual realm, but also in the realm of our life that we regard as material.

How do we imagine our material world and how much of this conception do we determine through our senses? With which mechanism of terminology do we arrange, organize, and delineate this? Which relations do our sensory perceptions suggest to us? And: How does our reality construct itself, if we forego that sense which determines the structure of our medial world in such a predominating way, i.e., the visual sense? Lights out, senses of hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting on. This is the way the artist consciously spent the last minutes of the day at the time and how he experienced how quickly the familiar dissipates and the unfamiliar gains intensity.

The invisible garden at the Stift Admont embodies this experience. Blindfolded visitors are guided through the world of the invisible garden. Shifts occur in one’s perception of time, distance, space, and rhythm, and the possibility emerges to create a concept of reality in one’s own words or through the help of the explanations of one’s escort.

The leaves of a gingko tree not only feel like rubber but can also be bent accordingly, the leaf with the pointed tips is probably a maple one, the finger with which one brushed the bark of a bush now carries the taste of bitter almond—these are experiences that open the door into another world. They offer a sensuous immersion—let the de- and re-construction begin. (wh/jn)

The early works of Oswald Oberhuber, born in Meran in 1931, are classified as informal sculpture. The artist has always felt that it was too limiting to develop himself artistically as the representative of a specific style. In the late 1950s, Oberhuber was already turning against an understanding of art oriented toward styles and pursued a theory and practice of permanent change. As an artist, as a teacher and head at the University of Applied Art in Vienna, and as a director of the Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Oberhuber’s work pursues new directions and breaks conventional notions. In the early 1970s, in an Innsbruck hospital, he produced an abstract sculpture out of industrially manufactured exhaust tubes. The art work—which defied the usual conceptions of art—became a nationwide sensation, but then somehow ended up in the hands of a plumber. An artist protest saved the work of art from being divided up and sold off for individual parts.

For the Belvedere in Vienna, Oberhuber has created a site-specific installation which includes drawings, paintings, and sculptures that are thematically related to Prince Eugen of Savoy, who was the founder of the Belvedere. Thematic exhibitions suit the artist. The thematic approach accommodates his resolution of permanent change: it not only permits artistic movement, but challenges it as well.

Oberhuber stresses the fact that he regards the work that he specifically created for the exhibition in the Belvedere as an overall composition. The works do not exist on their own, but rather in the context of the exhibition and its interpretation.

In finding an artistic language for a subject from the eighteenth century, how it related to current times was an important aspect for the artist. Bright colors prevail, the works are often graphically oriented and spare in detail. The use of color and simple graphics challenge the usual assumptions that visitors hold of royal portraits, creating a playful, ironic, almost comic effect. Oberhuber is not concerned about being accommodating, but rather about creating points through which the viewer can connect and thereby facilitate understanding. Using less words, the strengths of the works become apparent through what they downsize: those things which are often primally sensed, but at the same time, resist the current widespread view that their clarity depends on how densely they are applied.

Looking at the group of works inspired by war events, Oberhuber commented that these take on a partly critical attitude in relation to these occurrences—in a softer language, of course, because he can only speak softly, and prefers not to state something in a brutal fashion. (wh)

The works of Oswald Oberhuber can be seen in the exhibition, “The Passions of Prince Eugen”, at the Orangerie, Belvedere in Vienna from May 29th through September 13th, 2009.

Maria Lassnig: “Soft as marmalade, marmalade out of blood I’m batted and feel hindered and left locked out from the world of painting.”

“There was a saying, if a boy is born, parents drink a “snaps”, but if it is a girl they would only celebrate with water or even less … nothing”, recollects Maria Lassnig in one of her recently numerous interviews.

Born in 1919 she started to scribble her first artworks at a very young age. Once her mother even seeked the help of a fortune teller because her little girl was holding her hands in such a crooked way while drawing, that she looked like a fool. Although her mother was told to support her daughter, her only thought was to get her married to a decent man to keep her out of harm’s way.

But Life had different plans for her. As a young woman she decided to make a living out of painting. Between 1941 and 1943 Maria Lassnig studied at the academy of fine arts in Vienna. Later on she lived in Paris and New York. While living in the United States she started making animated films because her paintings were not understood. In the year 1980 she accepted a teaching position at the University for applied arts in Vienna. She was the first female professor for Painting at an academy in the German speaking world. Between 1982 and 1997 her works were shown at the documenta in Kassel. In the year 1988 she receives the Austrian State Art Prize and in 2004 she was awarded with the Max-Beckmann prize of the city of Frankfurt.

In the last couple of years the work of Maria Lassnig drew more and more attention. Hans Ulrich Obrist curated an exhibition of her work at the Serpentine Gallery in London, the critics deemed her to be the discovery of the century, the “grand dame” of the European painting. In 2009 the Vienna Museum of Modern Art hosted the exhibition “Maria Lassnig. The Ninth Decade.” Lassnig wasn’t entirely happy with the title “The Ninth Decade” because it made her sound like an old woman. She perceives herself as becoming smarter and more beautiful from day to day. In her diaries published by DuMont Lassnig describes death as a cruel unfair ending, this human fate unnecessarily destroys a beautiful building, which shines on the top. Looking at her recent work, one can understand this statement.

Maria Lassnig stands for those rare examples in art history, where hard work transforms knowledge and experience into a playful exploration. On many occasions she quotes that she does not have a clear vision when she takes a brush into her hand. The central theme of her work evolves around the illustration of the human body. In her “body awareness paintings” as Lassnig describes it, she extends the physical appearance of the body through the dimension of sensation.
Although she points out that she does not represent a feminist agenda, her drawings and self-portraits reflect on the female position in society nevertheless with a certain level of irony. In her work the “country girl” Lassnig portraits a mature woman who hangs on to a small scooter while her breasts seem to lose the battle with gravity. As if she would say, take the “shooter” but leave me the scooter.

In her work Lassnig consequently tries to rethink conventional positions, to develop new perspectives and to present things in a new context. She writes in her diaries: “Oh those artists who are trapped in their style, who look frustrated at the world, who are obsessed with success; they should modify their style, change it every week, think their standards over, change their hair color, their wig everyday, vary their preconceived opinion about politics, about the person next to them”. (jk/fls)

The author Josef Kleindienst, based in Vienna, writes “audio pictures”, plays, novels, and screenplays. His work, “Become a Member”, came out in 2007.

It is an audio picture of a relationship that is formed between three people due to an unexpected event. The ones involved are paralyzed in a moment of shock and unable to escape the situation. They are trapped in this involuntary gathering and struggle with actions and words to regain their fading composure.

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The speakers are Simona Sbaffi, Andreas Patton, Manfred Stella, and Simon Hatzl. Music by Hüseyin Evirgen. Sound by Johannes Kelz. Illustration by Elsa Mährenbach. Text and direction by Josef Kleindienst.

The little superhero, Superrobbie, who looks like a Playmobil figure, appears together with his other little brothers-in-arms in an image that resembles children’s room wallpaper, strewn in cheerful crayon shades. Surrounded by cute little ducklings, little Superrobbie places himself in a scene of contrasting reality, toting a pistol in his hand. Stretched out before him are his dead teachers, who are embodied in a similar Playmobil form. The dark side of the image reveals itself in its title: “Erfurt”.

Christian Pölzler create his art under the brand name, Heidi Popovic, which may seem cynical at first, but actually isn’t. Through pop poster images, through decorative wallpaper samples, through advertisements that promise us that “everything is OK”, Pölzler salvages forgotten images and maps a modern political apocalypse. The style of the artist’s works, with titles like “Erfurt”, “Enschede”, “9/11”, and “Fifty Years Contergan”, seems to be addressing the question, “What’s new, Pussycat?” But Pölzler’s blend of art hacks away at neurotic societal preoccupations in a different way than say, Woody Allen. His mix of visual images, which depicts a version of insanity that has become normal to us, brings to mind the lucidity of Thomas Bernhard. Pölzler creates critical pop art. (wh/jn)

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A number of the artist’s works can be seen in the Gallery Artmosphere by the curator Rudolf Budja.

The production of “living pictures” has a tradition. They could already be found in the royal victory processions of antiquity and they appeared again in Catholic masses, as well as in ceremonial processions during the Renaissance and the Baroque eras. By the end of the eighteenth century, the art progressed to unmoving, held poses, which became one with the scenery, and were displayed “on stage”. Originating in France and from that point on coined Tableaux Vivants, these embodiments of historical paintings and sculptures found their way into the drawing rooms of the elite and became part of the main repertoire of the theatre and revue world of the nineteenth century.

The artist Rita Nowak, based in Vienna and London, is carrying on the tradition of the embodiment of living pictures with her held-pose photography. Drawing from historical paintings, she composes living pictures using fellow artists as models thereby bringing the historical works up-to-date. Rather than creating mere reproductions, she investigates the possibilities of interpretation, thereby developing pictures that visualize the past in the present and modern images that are depicted through the visual language of past centuries.

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Rita Nowak began her artistic work with portraits of statues, as well as self-portraits. She explores the capacity of portraiture, the creation of living portraits, through the technique of Tableaux Vivants. The poses of the figures and the space of the scenery in her Tableaux are therefore not only interpretations of classical subjects. They are also visual depictions of personalities in which the area, light, and objects merge with the embodying person, resulting in a self-representation that does not only occur in a historical, but also in an individual/personal sense. (wh/jn)

The job description for Marten Spangberg encompasses many terms. He got his start as a dance critic, writes on theory, is active as a performer, dance dramaturge, a curator, and a choreographer, and is considered a stage producer in quite a positive sense. Spangberg has been collaborating with the Swedish architect, Lindstrand Tor, since 2004 under the name International Festival. Their collaborative work explores perceptions of concepts related to body and space, and has gained international attention. At the present and in the last year, they have been invited to the European Arts Center in Cologne, the PERFORMA 07 in New York, and the Steirischen Herbst 07. For the festival in Graz, they developed “The Theater”, a multi-faceted enterprise which simultaneously describes a venue for stories, characters, and illusions, the performances that take place there, and the actual spatially-adaptable theater that was constructed from freight containers.

Aside from his collaboration with Lindstrand Tor, Marten Spangberg also works as a solo artist. He experiments in performances with himself and with others. The tools of his work are the body in relation to the world and the way the body behaves in space. He is concerned with the different behavior patterns we embody: our self, our reality, our sociability, our wants…

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We interviewed Spangberg in the context of the event series, “NICHTS ist aufregend. NICHTS ist sexy. NICHTS ist nicht peinlich.” (“NOTHING is exciting. NOTHING is sexy. NOTHING is not awkward.”), being held at MOMUK and Tanzquartier Wien. His performance in the series, “Slow Fall”, is a sketch, an artistic draft of a work which will premiere in November 2008. In the context of this performance, Spangberg explores the different behavior patterns which we embody and moderate, and the possibility thereby of creating a new understanding for ourselves.

Spangberg takes on the statement “NOTHING is not awkward” and tries to find a term for awkwardness which corresponds to the artistic emphasis of his work on the relationships of the body to area and the body to the world. By positing awkwardness as a displacement, as a deliberate ill-at-ease, as a levitation, our embodiments of our interactions become free-floating, thereby allowing us to grab hold of how they interact with us. For the choreographic realization of this program, Spangberg borrowed from elements of eastern spiritual out-of-body experience techniques, but denies his audience the exhibition of a performance for which they would already have words. By rupturing the typical ways in which we embody physical propriety, Spangberg brings about a displacement through which, during the performance, his nakedness, which has not yet been articulated, is experienced by the audience under the new guise, and in the best sense, as an “ill-at-ease” experience. The audience cannot find the words, for words have in fact become disproportionate, to describe the experience. However, afterwards, somehow a little space is created, to separately determine one’s own proportions, and to use this experience of awkwardness to find one’s own words and to take up one’s own position. (wh/jn)