Constantin Luser challenges us to enter the maze of his imagination: he corners us against the wall of our indifference and confronts us with the unavoidable question whether we will ever be able to escape. But escape what? A portrait.

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In any case, it tames the wildness of our thinking, which means that when it happens –ever so rarely- the hegemony of the concept is erased and for a moment we are cured of our illness separating us from time – our rationality. more »

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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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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.

It is an interesting fact that the fez, the iconic Turkish hat that was originally instituted as a “modernizing” symbol for the Ottoman Empire in 1826, was later banned in Turkey in 1925, also as part of a “modernizing” reform. It is also interesting to note that after the invention of synthetic dyes, the main manufacturer of the fez—which up until that point had been colored with native berry juice—was located in Austria, that is, until it was boycotted by Turkey in 1908, as part of yet another reaction to modernization. The “history” of this simple, cliché-ridden object demonstrates the complexity of historical constructs not only of the Ottoman Empire, but within the grand narrative of modernity overall.

As shown through this minor but telling symbolic object, history is not a clear-cut dichotomy of oppositions between “East and West”, the oppressed and emancipated, “natives” and “outsiders”, or “modernized” and “un-modernized”. Instead, history is a series of intersections, clashes, meetings, and interruptions between elements coming from many different directions, a condition that requires us to always keep in mind the agenda, the perspective, the position of every historical narrative. In German, the same word, “Geschichte”, is used for two separate English terms, “story” and “history”—yet another indication that the “story”, the constructed, fictional element, can never be taken out of the “history”.

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In the exhibition, tanzimat, at the Augarten Contemporary, the conflicted symbol of the fez appears in the work, Carousel, by the Turkish artist, Esra Ersen, for which she recruited students at a high school in Cologne (from various backgrounds, including Turkish) to create clay models of Turkish heads, and the work, In the Eyes of a Mute, by the Romanian artist, Viktor Man, which juxtaposes a comic-like drawing of Turks he drew as a child against conceptual pieces addressing the same period in history. We also find these fez-donning depictions of Turks in the work, Trophies, by the Austrian artists, Franz Kapfer, which in this case, are not children’s portrayals, but rather reproductions of trophies that are still displayed in the Spanish Riding School today.

The exhibition, tanzimat, is named for a period of reformation in the Ottoman Empire which occurred from 1839 to 1876, and was notable for its various efforts towards modernization, which included the enhancement of civil liberties and the establishment of technological, financial, and social reforms. The term is not capitalized for the title of the exhibition—as opposed to the term for the historical period—an indication that the original meaning of the word, “arrangement” or “rearrangement”, is even more significant to the exhibition than the historical period. Artists from various Middle European backgrounds, Turkish, Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Austrian, were invited to challenge and confront this process of rearrangement within their own histories. Developed in parallel to the major Prince Eugen of Savoy exhibition at the Lower Belvedere, tanzimat examines the continual reorganization of historical constructs and devices that underscore the neverending project of modernity. (jn)

When a tree falls down in the forest and noone witnesses it, did it really happen? When an artist makes a sculpture on top of a mountain and noone sees it, is it really art? The artist Christian Eisenberger does not like to limit himself to the gallery or the art space. When the impulse moves him, he is content to spontaneously create something when and where he wants, and then to let it run its course. Such is the case with his ice sculptures or his sugar cube towers that are left in their natural environments to melt or be overrun by ants. Such tendencies towards land art-influenced pieces demonstrate both Eisenberger’s methods of inspiration as well as his attitude toward art-world restrictions such as properly designated venues or commissioned works. Eisenberger first gained attention by his impromptu displays of cardboard figures on city streets and art fair grounds. The gesture questioned the predispositions of viewers and so-called “proper” venues.

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The need to create art is a complex one. On the one hand, one could argue that art is a cry for attention, a narcissistic calling. On the other, art is a form of play, a way to satisfy one’s childlike predisposition towards drawing, building, making stuff. Eisenberger creates works that want to be acknowledged, but at the same time, Eisenberger hides behind his work while simultaneously daring the viewer to look away. In a recent exhibition, he took cover within a bear suit made entirely out of packing tape, spray painting cryptic messages and scrawlings within a makeshift four-walled cardboard space. The set-up both invited the viewer to utilize unstable aids such as a ladder or a wobbly table to get a peek at his antics, but the effort was rewarded by his playful displays and offerings of snacks. In the end, the structure was challenge to and deconstruction of the static “white cube” gallery space by literally converting the viewer from a passive to an active role. It was all part of the “game” that Eisenberger had meticulously set up, at once inviting and defiant.

But this is not to say that Eisenberger’s approach is childish. The bear suit is a further development of a series of works involving countless cocoons that the artist created and then shed by wrapping himself in packing tape and then cutting himself out of the mummy-like figures. Such projects satisfy his need to hide and yet be seen, and the resulting shells, which he then displayed in various contexts, remain testaments to his observations on performance, corporeality, and materiality. Further use of ephemeral, “trashy” materials such as packing tape, cardboard boxes, or even his own sperm, express his commitment to spontaneity and his rebellion against material worth. His performances—for example, when he dressed up as kind of faux suicide-bomber clown and walked the streets of Vienna and London—often smack of insouciance, but, like a child and even more like an artist, his desire to engage is very real. (jn)

This artist portrait was realised with the kind support of the CastYourArt foundation.

Beauty. Order. Cleanliness. Purity. Perfection. To all of these coveted qualities, hair is a threat, a flaw, a disturbance. When someone is well-groomed, we describe them as “not having a hair on her head out of place”, signifying that hair is something to be put into its place, to be kept under control. There are many places where hair is not supposed to be: stuck on your sweater, floating in your soup, appearing on a projected film frame, beyond the acceptable areas and lengths on one’s body, etc. And so, when we are confronted with its appearance in a work of art, we are unsure: do the same rules apply here? Should I be delighted or disgusted? As always, the use of unconventional materials in art forces us to make up our own minds.

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In her art work, Fiene Scharp, based in Berlin, works regularly with materials such as hair, grease, and wax. She describes her focus as being “the moment of touching in which the touch-er and the touch-ee become aware of themselves and the other.” In a primarily visual context such as art exhibitions, touching is often forbidden, but perception is not. Scharp’s use of hair challenges these boundaries by placing the viewer in a position somewhere between attraction and repulsion. A 100-cm cube composed completely of human hair somehow knocks our perception for a loop: questions arise as to from where the hair originated and whether it is too much while, at the same time, impulses are suppressed to reach out and stroke it. Otherwise conventional forms such as delicate weaves or graphs on paper shock us when we realize that they are made of hairs. Carefully placed hairs on ordinary food items such as butter or a lemon provoke us with their violation of propriety.

Scharp uses the video format to bring her fixation with capturing this complicated relation to the sense of touch to the next level. Tiny hairs between an index finger and thumb bristle audibly as they act as a barrier between their contact on one video, two hands slowly polish a rough sheet of ice into a smooth, reflective surface in another. Although we as viewers are still limited in our access to the works to the senses of sight and sound, the sense of touch is the focus, and, once again, cannot be taken for granted. For this purpose, Scharp refers to another all-too-human material, skin, which she describes as “a metaphor for the state of being separate, as well as a membrane.” References to hair and skin confront us with our own corporeality and challenge us to place such normally mundane materials in a new context, not only in art, but in life as well. (jn)

It was animals that were created first, only thereafter, human beings. Seniority, the privilege of age, was compensated by the privilege of designation, the late arrival meant: “the ability to observe and appropriately designate what came before“. (Peter Sloterdijk) But human beings are the notorious late arrivers, one should not be deceived by the biblical version. Because humans only come into their own through language, the individual must always harbor the eerily daunting gap of pre-linguistic existence.

When Deborah Sengl uses metalinguistic capability in order to create a new word, she refers to the fact that the found language masks as much as it reveals. By creating the word “ertarnen“ (“to deceive through displacement”), which is used in most of the titles of her artworks, she incapsulates the central themes of her work: humans, animals, camouflage, and breeding. The artist represents hermaphroditic natures in her paintings, drawings, and taxidermal sculptures: Human bodies with animal heads; animals that are camouflaged as their prey, or, as their predators; female figures whose bodies are covered with fashion logos; masked faces. The diverse variations of deception which nature holds ready—which its creatures usually use for their own protection—are shifted a bit throughout her work, thereby disturbing conceptions of hierarchies, balances of power, and victim-perpetrator relations. It addresses the various roles we must play in the struggle for existence in order to survive in society.

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Sengl’s junction of human and animal, playing with the roles of perpetrator and victim makes one thing visible above all: the fracture which takes place within all humans. The lion in the skin of its most-prized prey; the zebra, the cross-country skier sporting the head of his feared pursuer, the bear; the woman, who has “ertarnt” herself with a luxury logo-hide, these characters deceive their so-called enemies by impersonating or “ertarn-ing” them, they are all primarily creatures torn by identity and/or language.

Deborah Sengl studied at the University of Applied Art in the department of visual media design and completed her degree in painting in 1997 under Christian Ludwig Attersee. In the beginning, she was also pursuing a minor in biology, with a focus on genetic engineering. (sh/jn)

Deborah Sengl’s new exhibition “All you can lose” opens on 8th of September 2009 at the Steineck Gallery in Vienna. On 9th of November 6pm her new book “Deborah Sengl 2008/09″ will be presented.

In the early twentieth century, in the course of the modern art’s search for the “very early origins” of art, so-called “outsider art” was discovered. At the same time, psychiatrists who hoped to be able to use works of psychiatric patients for diagnostic purposes began actively collecting for the first time on a large scale. Along these lines, the art historian and physician Hans Prinzhorn (1886-1933), received a commission from the Heidelberger hospital in 1919 to extend the small educational collection of the institute and to find methods that would help to gain insides into the type of the patients’ illness using their creative works. However, Prinzhorn rejected taking a purely clinical psychiatric approach to the works. Instead, he set the works into an art-theoretical context and thereby brought the aesthetic beauty of the until-then marginalized “mad art” into focus for the first time—a pioneering achievement.

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In 1922, Prinzhorn published the book, Artistry of the Mentally Ill, in which he documented and interpreted a large part of the collection, drawing parallels to other forms of artistic patterns and contemporary art. While his colleagues mostly rejected the book, it was enthusiastically received by the modern art world. It inspired artists such as Max Ernst, Alfred Kubin, and Pablo Picasso, and had a substantial influence on twentieth-century art theory and reception, which is reflected in—not least of all—today’s occupation with “state-bound art” and “outsider art“.

Today, the Prinzhorn Collection includes 5000 works from 435 mostly schizophrenic-diagnosed patients of various social backgrounds and age ranges. It brings together drawings, paintings, collages, textiles, sculptures, and texts, which emerged between 1880 and 1933 in the psychiatric institutes of mainly German-speaking countries.

A selection of the Prinzhorn Collection is presently on display in the Museum of Contemporary Art at the Benediktinerstift Admont. (sh/jn)

There has been substantial evidence for the theory, according to the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, that it is far less important for humans to know who they are, than where they are. The persistent ignorance regarding one’s place of existence is one of the causes for what newer philosophy calls oblivion of being.

The inquiry after the “where” and the placing of one’s person and works represent central aspects of Wilhelm Scherübl’s work. His work realizes itself in the examination of his locations of residence and life, and in the integration of the respective condition of the places and resources which he finds there.

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Scherübl lives in the country, in upper Ennstal, where he sometimes paints outdoors, using trees and plants for his works, and plays with reflections on natural water surfaces for his light installations. His art is a reflection on nature and the attempt to attain insights into artistic and natural processes of development, as well as into the complexity of the earth’s organism and our own finiteness.

The artist acts as an initiator here, he begins a process for which he formulates basic conditions which, in the end, still escape his control for the most part. The process leaves growth, light, cold, and wind to nature. By freezing the paint outdoors, the so-called Minusaquarelle (“minus watercolors”) are formed: only then do moments of the completion of his light installations on the water emerge, when the surface is flat and undisturbed by wind. The plant installations are subject to the natural cycle of growing, blooming, and withering.

Conversely, installations in which plants are transplanted into artificial and/or artistic contexts and are therefore dependent on life-supporting measures, refer to the concept of nature as something which is in principle made possible through production, as well as to the attempt of humans to disconnect themselves from natural processes.

The anonymous, living sculptures in states of perpetual change reflect on the imperfect, the temporary, and the unformulated. With a background in sculpture, Scherübl - who attended the Academy of Fine Arts and completed his degree under Bruno Gironcoli –has progressively shifted his focus from form to transformation. His works represent the overlying process and the physical energy which flows into it, as well as those things that are left out—like chips of stone—which Scherübl then incorporates into new developing cycles of works. What is essential here is the time aspect: transformations develop over time and possess their own rhythm. Scherübl’s idea of making efficient use of time paradoxically involves time consuming techniques in order to fill up large surfaces of paper with ball-point pen or pencil, or to gradually obscure windowpanes with many small brush lines. Through these works, the time and the energy which something needs in order to come into being becomes tangible.

Coming into and out of existence, artificial and natural light: these are also themes to which Scherübl dedicates an installation which can currently be viewed in the exhibition “Nature - Creation is not finished!“ at Stift Admont. The “Hall for Artistic Intervention“ was set up by the artist with a light installation in which a network of power cords branch out in tributary-like forms, representing the transformation of energy, and lead to a fluorescent sign reading “ENNS”, making reference to the river to which he lives nearby. Books from the Stift Admont library show illustrations of sunflowers: the ultimate light seeker. “I am addicted to light“, says Wilhelm Scherübl. (sh/jn)