Okt 18 to Nov 30

«A Sense of Place»

curated by Eva Engelbert und Katrin Hornek

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The two young artists Eva Engelbert and Katrin Hornek were invited to conceive a group exhibition based on their own ­production methods and social relations in the art field. This approach dispenses with the usual functional division between curators and artists, nor is it primarily a matter of selecting artworks addressing a particular topic; instead, it represents an attempt to create an aesthetic and spatial illustration of existing and evolving working contexts and shared ways of thinking.

The work and livelihood of young artists today, particularly those who do not produce according to the whims of the market, are determined to a great extent by grants, study fellowships and residency programs. At least two phenomena result from the associated ever-changing settings, social environments and personal contacts: the first is that most artists accumulate a rapidly growing network of international artist friends and acquaintances whose significance often extends beyond the respective local scene. And, second, there is the paradox of artists engaging with their changing locations and the specific issues there and developing works whose relevance then seems questionable in other places. Eva Engelbert and Katrin Hornek integrate both of these points into their exhibition concept. The invited artists are part of a network of producers who have in most cases gotten to know each other in places where none of them is at home, channeled through funding programs and the like. For the self-organized gathering of artists in their exhibition, the curating artists focus on questions such as: What happens en route between a real place, the locus created by a work of art and the exhibition space? Is the art space fictional? What kind of space is created when we transport site-specificity somewhere else? Does the local context become nothing but a backdrop, thereby ending up depoliticized? Is contemporary art as mobile as its artists?

Of interest here is the question of the site-specificity of artistic work and the conditions that might make its translation in space and time possible. While discussions of site-specificity have been strongly linked since the 1960s in certain conceptual ­currents with a critical reflection on the gallery space and the work of art as a commodity, this issue is in part a different one today. Given the above-mentioned structures, which almost demand that artistic practice makes reference to its location, site-specificity loses some of its aura as critique, and the self-localization of the artist requires some contemplation of the problems of the persistence and further development of site-based work under these conditions.

The contributions of the participating artists to «A Sense of Place» generate in the exhibition a convergence of artistic arguments on the cited problems of the local associations and «transportability» of certain methods. Johanna Tinzl and Stefan Flunger (A) add to their video «The Fence is European,» which they shot on the Moroccan-Spanish border with commentary by a Spain taxi driver, a ­voice-over spoken by a taxi driver from Carinthia, thus creating a link to border and immigration policies on the frontiers of, and within, Europe. Karin Hasselberg (S) presents the sculptural current state of her research on the possibility of an «any site specific object,» which would function in any exhibition venue, along with a video from her «Hole Series» that documents the physical intervention of the artist in the soil of various exhibition locations. The video work «Nomads» by Kay Walkowiak (A) shows eight Indian street scene sequences in which a white cube, which can be read as a pedestal, a minimalist work of art or a quote of modernist architecture, is dragged along the ground behind a bicycle rickshaw. Ann Guillaume (F) compares and contrasts in her video «Ancestral Voices» the different ways in which history and culture are presented in tourism and scholarship, using the example of ancient Greece, and also exhibits on a shipping pallet the Kunstraum Lakeside curtain, taken down and folded, ready for transport.

Unusual for a group exhibition of young and conceptually oriented art is the inclusion of the 79-year-old Salzburg sculptor Josef Zenzmaier, whose larger-than-life bronze statue of Paracelsus has been installed temporarily outside the exhibition room. As an example of a traditional concept of sculpture, Zenzmaier’s Paracelsus fits into the project context due to its special history as a work commissioned for a specific place (the University of Salzburg), which however then forfeited that location, so to speak, in the course of a decades-long production process and differences between the artist and his clients. In direct proximity to Zenzmaier’s sculpture Hannes Zebedin (A) creates a work for the advertising pillar in front of the exhibition space that deals with movement-strategies of the Carinthian partisans and their tactics between secrecy and political propaganda during the Nazi era.

Eva Engelbert and Katrin Hornek (A) were inspired by an internet game on global communication to create an artistic «bracket»: in an act of overblown globalism, their «Earth Sandwich» traps the ­globe between two halves of a bread roll, one each at kunstraum lakeside and at Chatham Islands Museum, located at the opposite end of the globe in the South Pacific. The museum is represented at kunstraum lakeside by way of information materials and photographs of the roll half, while the Kunstraum is present at the Chatham Islands Museum in the guise of its program booklets and a photo of the other half of the roll. In bringing together the different works described above in ­«A Sense of Place,» it is hoped that a discussion will be set off on the meaning of location in contemporary art.

Eva Engelbert (A, 1983), lives and works in Vienna. 2004–2010 University of Applied Arts Vienna, Prof. Gabriele Rothemann, 2008/2009 Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Solo shows: Galerie 5020, Salzburg (2011). www.evaengelbert.com

Ann Guillaume (F, 1980), lives and works in Paris. Solo shows: Espace d’en bas, Paris, (2012); Galerie Octave Cowbell, Metz (2011); Galerie Odile Ouizeman (2010); Galerie Sara Guedj, Paris (2009). www.annguillaume.fr

Karin Hasselberg (S, 1980), lives and works in Malmö. 201–2013 Malmö Art Academy, Malmö. 2003–2007 Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. 2006 Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. Solo shows: New Socket. Gallery Sandy Brown, Berlin (2011); Screens on 11. Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (2008). www.karinhasselberg.com

Katrin Hornek (A, 1983), lives and works in Vienna. 2003–2008 Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Prof. Monica Bonvicini. 2006 Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Wall and Space. Solo shows: Ellen de Bruijne Projects/Dolores, Amsterdam; Spare Room, Melbourne (2011); Galerie 5020, Salzburg (2009); Basis, Frankfurt (2008). www.katrinhornek.com

Johanna Tinzl/Stefan Flunger (A, 1976/A, 1969), live and work in Vienna. Collaboration since 2004. ­Johanna Tinzl: 2002–2007 University of Applied Arts Vienna, Brigitte Kowanz. 1996–2002 Universität Mozarteum Salzburg. Stefan Flunger: 1989–1999 Studies in Art History at Innsbruck University. Solo shows: Neue Galerie, Innsbruck; VBKÖ, Vienna (2011). www.tinzl-flunger.net

Kay Walkowiak (A, 1980), lives and works in Vienna. 2005–2010 University of Applied Arts Vienna, Sculpture and Multi media, Prof. Erwin Wurm. 2003–2009, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Art and Communication Practices. 2008 Tokyo Zokei University, Japan. 2003–2008 Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Art and Photography. Solo shows: Kunstpavillon, Tiroler Künstlerschaft, Innsbruck; The Lust Gallery, Vienna (2012); Vienna Artweek 2010, Magazin, Vienna (2010); node, Tokyo (2008). http://walkowiak.artfolder.net

Hannes Zebedin (A, 1976). Solo shows: «Zweifelskontinuum», Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (2012); «Immer noch und noch nicht» (with Adrien Tirtiaux), Kunsthalle St. Gallen; «Commonwealth», AREA Lugar de Proyectos, ­Caguas, Puerto Rico (2011); «Escape», Galerie kunstbuero, Vienna; From Partisan View, OKC Abrasevic, Mostar (2010); «Mit Schwung durchqueren anstatt sich aufzuhalten», Secession, Vienna (2009).

Josef Zenzmaier (A, 1933), lives and works in Kuchl, Austria. 1947–1951 ­Bundesfachschule für Holz, Stein und Metallbearbeitung, Hallein. 1952–1954 training as a stonemason in the Mayr-Melnhofsche Marmorwerke, Salzburg. 1953/1954 Summer Academy of Fine Arts, Salzburg (Oskar Kokoschka, Uli Nimbsch/Giacomo Manzù). 1955–1957 Werkkunstschule Köln, Metal Sculpture. 1979–1996 teaches sculpture (bronze casting) at Summer Academy of Fine Arts, Salzburg. 1985 Granted honorary title «Professor». Solo shows: Romanischer Keller, Salzburg; Salzburger Museum Carolino Augusteum (2003); Schloß ­Neuhaus, Salzburg (2001). Public Projects: Virgil-Bronze, Bildungshaus Salzburg (1976) ; Gnadenstuhl-Bronze, Erzbischöfliches Palais, Salzburg (1989); Bronze gates at Haus for Mozart, Salzburg (2006); Paracelsus-Bronze (2010).

With kind support of:

Galerie im Traklhaus

Institut Francais Autriche