Open Archive: Kerstin von Gabain by Natalia Gurova for Hugo Zorn Photo: Natalia Gurova
Room 2.43, Parallel Vienna, 24.- 29.9. 12 - 5 pm
mud on your knees
soil in your mouth
worms inside your eyes
cuts deeper than the ocean
rotting gums
feral tongue
(author unknown)
Viltė Bražiūnaitė and Tomas Sinkevičius / Olivia Coeln / Schirin Charlot / Kerstin von Gabain / Hannah Hansel / Helmut Heiss / Axel Huber/ Albert Mayr / Thea Moeller / Hanno Schnegg / Sophie Thun / Julian Tromp / George Rei
You stop. Finally arrived, or have you? You've travelled a long time.
You haven't been here before, you are sure. Still something is familiar. Same but different.
Wasn't that the song you just heard? A beeping sound, short confusion.
Now you remember why you're here. Your body feels heavy. Dizziness. Lagging behind.
But don't worry. You'll get assistance. Things have to be maintained. Keep on going.
That's what these places are for. Right? You feel relieved. At least a bit.
The reassurance of a too familiar ritual. Convenience is king. You get out of your metal cage.
Its space so familiar. Your dread and desire. You wander around. Or rather - you're drawn in.
Inhaling the place. Blissful exhaustion. The feeling reminds you of that one holiday.
There was a lot of rubble. Objects from the past, all laid out before you.
You liked it somehow, but still don't know why.
Places like this seem to protect something. Like a ruin keeping its secret.
But there is none. You know this. All this stuff you forgot about. Like everyone.
It's OK. Even reassuring. You close the door. The radio is on.
Jakob Sellaoui
Siggi Hofer / Kerstin von Gabain / Anna Gille Garden / Y.-My Nguyen & Antoine Orand / Max Schaffer
Edited, printed and bound by Katarina Schildgen & Paul Gasser
Being Towards the World, Sophie Tappeiner, 30. Mar. – 04 May 2019
Leda Bourgogne / Jesse Darling / Kerstin von Gabain / Sophie Jung / Maria Lassnig / Alina Szapocznikow / Jala Wahid
Being Towards the World
with this organic trauma and this visceral joy.
The body senses world and saves world.
Its experiences make up the complex structure of the selves
we use to negotiate life.
Bodies, unruly, defiant and fractured, insistently plastic and
stubbornly present, carry forth their memories in
unpredictable ways.
This vessel of present identities and past becomings
is moved
by what has occured to it while itself occuring onto others.
My body
Writes into your flesh
The poem
You make of me. (1)
Sophie Tappeiner
Gespräch mit Kerstin von Gabain und Ann-Katrin Fessler, Depot, 21.1.2019, 19 Uhr
Lange Zeit waren die vorderen Reihen in den vom Kunstmarkt definierten Rankings von männlichen Künstlern besetzt. Das ändert sich zunehmend. Eine neue Veranstaltungsreihe fragt nach.
Die Künstlerin Kerstin von Gabain erforscht, basierend auf ihrem Interesse am Anthropomorphismus, die Beziehung zwischen Fotografie und Bildhauerei. Mit ihren Installationen und Ensembles legt sie motivische Bezüge zur Kunst- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte frei. Für ihre komplexe künstlerische Position erhielt sie 2017 den Kardinal König Kunstpreis.
Kalt, Kunstverein Ve.Sch, 20. Jan. - 9 Feb. 2019
Julian Feritsch / Michael Franz / Kerstin von Gabain / Ana Hoffner / Luiza Margan / Wolfgang Stengel / Christoph Weber / Franz Zar
curated by Thea Moeller, Ludwig Kittinger and Martin Vesely
Cäcilia Brown / Kerstin von Gabain / Kathi Hofer / Natalia LL / Marko Lulić / Johanna Reich / Elfie Semotan / Ene-Liis Semper / Marina Sula / Jaan Toomik / Paul Wiersbinski
curated by Georg Elben
Noodle House – Kerstin von Gabain, Irina Gavrich and GON, Vienna, 8.8.2018, Photo: Irina Gavrich
Deckard is introduced to us sitting in an Asian noodle bar wanting to be left alone before being hassled into resuming blade running. From that moment on the ubiquitous noodle shop has become the perfect close up of a metropolis set in a dystopian future. The simple diner serving up Asian food offers a temporary sanctuary for night owls and recluses alike. It becomes not only a place where the hungry can get provisons or shelter from the rain but where the basic human can get some rest from a world of man and machine.
The “Noodle House” at Praterstrasse 30, is a tiny, busy, and cheerful take-away restaurant serving a medley of Asian dishes, everything from sushi to hot noodles. Its iconography boasts a careless and casual display of cultural globalism. The venue functions as a namesake for Kerstin von Gabain’s, Irina Gavrich's and GON's collaboration as well as the location for their presentation. Friends of the collaborators are wearing the new SS19 collection by GON styled together with rubber bands cast in prosthetic silicon by Kerstin von Gabain. The models connect with the space through a variety of individual activities, remaining abstract and alien to its regular customers or spectators. Visually they form a tribe of their own, who has gathered at the Noodle House to indulge in their own situations. The presentation was photographed and staged by Irina Gavrich at the Venue and her photographs capture the distant careless atmosphere of the location while at the same time portraying the different parties of the performace with an intimate and gentle gaze.
Kerstin von Gabain
Ordination, 19. Jul. – 17. Aug. 2018
Victoria Adam / Kerry Downey in collaboration with Joanna Seitz/ Zuzanna Czebatul / DWMC / Claude Eigan / Bernhard Frue / Gelitin / Martin Grandits / Item on loan from Josephinum / Birgit Jürgenssen / Tomasz Kowalski / Klara Lilja / Angelika Loderer / Johann Neumeister / Anna Paul / Hanna Putz / Alex Ruthner / Ellen Schafer / Siggi Sekira / Elfie Semotan / Astrid Wagner / Hans Weigand
curated by Kerstin von Gabain and Sophie Tappeiner
(…) No one enters a doctor’s without expectations. It’s an emotionally charged location. For decades, it has seen a never ending ceasing stream of patients feeling a strange mixture of shame and hope, fearing unimaginable pain and sometimes leaving feeling total salvation. Deprived of its true function and desecrated by the absence if its usual protagonists, an exhibition in such a place leaves limited physical and intellectual space for the works on display. New objects join the silent witnesses of past events, renewing the body and flesh of the space (whether natural or prosthetic). These things replace and liberate its imagined conventional visitors, sometimes humorously, sometimes playing with associations that point elsewhere. The art becomes a cure for the place. The visitor replaces the absent dermatologist, also concluding by looking at the surface.
Moritz Stipsicz
Gabriele Senn Galerie, Vienna, 27. Apr. - 16. Jun. 2018
Cäcilia Brown / Kerstin von Gabain / Thea Moeller / Alexander Ruthner / Marina Sula
Kerstin von Gabain & Thea Moeller: El Centro 2, Galerie Kunstbüro, 23. Mar. – 19. Apr. 2018
El Centro 2 by Kerstin von Gabain and Thea Moeller is a continuation of the exhibition El Centro, which was shown in 2016 at Martinetz in Cologne. The title refers to a place on the Mexican border in California that the two artists visited together in 2016. The respective artistic positions are presented as opposites: 'The difference in the work of the two artist is as great as the rigor with which they present the expanded possibilities of sculpture.' (Henrik Bündge). New work linking thematically to Cologne will be produced for the exhibition, and will be accompanied by a publication with a conversation between the two artists.
Dollhouse of A Poem, 2 June 2017, Poster by Ismini Adami
Ismini Adami / Daphne Ahlers / Minda Andren / Nouria Behloul / Adrian Buschmann / Rani Bageria / Alessio Delli Castelli / Simone Carneiro / Schirin Charlot / Clegg & Guttmann / Dark Disko (Rade Petrasevic & Philipp Ruthner) / Marco Dessi / Daniel Ecker / Philipp Friedrich / Bernhard Frue / Kerstin von Gabain / Marcus Geiger / Franz Graf / Martin Grandits / Begi Guggenheim / Hannah Hansel / Anne Hardy / Max Henry / Richard Hoeck / Natia Kalandadze / Benedikt Ledebur / Michael Lukas / Constantin Luser / Albert Mayr / Emma McMillan / Thea Moeller / Johann Neumeister / Daniel Peterson / Roshi Porkar / Noushin Redjaian / George Rei / Rosa Rendl / Daniel Richter / Alex Ruthner / Hanno Schnegg / Björn Segschneider / Nino Sakandelidze / Ania Shestakova / Tamuna Sirbiladze / Nino Stelzl / Lilli Thießen / Sophie Thun / Cathrin Ulikowski / Franz West / Anita Witek / Sasha Zalivako / Edin Zenun / Heimo Zobernig / Christina Zurfluh
Kerstin von Gabain and Nino Sakandelidze have invited an eclectic collection of 53 artists, related to the Vienna art scene, to fill the doll house that stands as home to the show. The doll house itself, having survived the 80’s and being a much loved plaything to Kerstin von Gabain, receives a new lease of life as a miniature art museum. Almost all the works have been created specifically to be presented in the house. They range from miniature versions of bigger well known pieces or completely brand new pieces in the smaller form.
Moi Non Moi or Carrying Owls to Athens, Wiener Art Foundation, Athens, 7.5. – 7.7.2016
Irini Athanassakis / Stefanie Binder / Cäcilia Brown / Thomas Feuerstein / Andreas Fogarasi / Marcus Geiger / Sophie Gogl / Franz Graf / Martin Grandits / Begi Guggenheim / Ilse Haider / Stelios Karamanolis / Victor Lizana / Anastasios Logothetis / Michael Lukas / Marko Lulic / Constantin Luser / Albert Mayr / Christoph Meier / Johann Neumeister / Katherina Olschbaur / Panos Papadopoulos / Natasha Papadopoulou / Parastu / Rade Petrasevic / Hans Werner Poschauko / Claudia Plank / Christian Rosa / Corinne L. Rusch / Alex Ruthner / Nino Sakandelidze / Hans Schabus / Toni Schmale / Johannes Schweiger / Björn Segschneider / Nino Stelzl / Sofia Stevi / Stefania Strouza / Philipp Timischl / Jannis Varelas / Kerstin von Gabain, Astrid Wagner / Franz West / Erwin Wurm
curated by Amer Abbas and Stefan Bidner
Shape Shift – an evening dedicated to works by Kerstin von Gabain, Begi Guggenheim and Tina Lechner. 4.4.2017, hosted by Nicole Adler and Anita Witek
Pro(s)thesis, Gemäldegalerie, Akademie der bildende Künste, 10.3 – 14.3.2017, Photo: Lisa Rastl
Kerstin von Gabain / Anne Imhof /Birgit Jürgenssen / Barbis Ruder / Toni Schmale / Anne Schneider
curated by Berenice Pahl and Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein
The guiding motif of this exhibition is the prosthesis as a metaphor for transformation processes and the biological-technological permeation of the body. The idea is already suggested in the title, which superimposes the words prosthesis and prosthesis (the Ancient Greek term for the display of a dead body) …
… In the adjacent Bosch Room, Kerstin von Gabain takes Hieronymus Bosch’s phantasmagoric visions as a starting point and confronts his famous winged altar depicting The Last Judgment with her installation Symposium on the Dark Ages, 2017. Hieronymus Bosch developed his dark observations about the human race and its almost unsalvageable entanglement in everyday sins in the transition from the late medieval to the early modern period. In his cryptic, often terrifying, archaic images, he describes the condition of the human body in various aggregate states across the entire human condition. Kerstin von Gabain subjects the phantasms of inorganic, anagrammatic, and fragmented physiques connected to this at once paradisiacal and apocalyptic context to a pornographic-anatomical gaze. An installation with three tables serves as a horizontal counterpart to the plates of Bosch’s triptych: a tableau for the arrangement of von Gabain’s Symposium on the Dark Ages. Not without a nonchalant smile on her face, the artist constructs a colourful, multifaceted spectrum whose protagonists are cast-wax bony hybrids. The plaster molds originally cast as negatives from the artist’s individual body parts appear as positive wax casts. These monstrous objects reminiscent of long bones full of marrow evoke images of animal, organic, vegetable parts as well as images of deliciously sweet things. Von Gabain’s tableau of hybrids emerges from the reflection of Bosch’s counterpart: a mapping of things belonging to the body and things alien to the body, of self and non-self. After all, the artificial parts are symbols, “doubles” without their own identity that merely pretend to be part of the body.
Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein
Död, Gabriele Senn Galerie, Vienna, 10.3.2017 - 29.4.2017
The exhibition brings together a constellation of Kerstin von Gabain’s wax and plaster sculptures of vegetables, fruit, and body parts. Building on previous work, the exhibition further explores how von Gabain considers and plays with the space between objects and their representation, the evolution and exchange between sculpture and photography, which are the recurring elements and processes underlying her oeuvre. The cross sections of bones are cast from her arms and legs and hollowed out through sanding to resemble bone marrow. Unlike the putrefaction of Paul Thek’s meat sculptures, however, von Gabain’s objects are abstract and candy colored. The pieces are handmade yet resolutely perfect, subversively fresh and immediate. Through their mediation via postcard-sized photos, they serve as memento mori that are garish in their eternality, and yet suggest a knowledge too small, a lifespan too short. The objects rest on plinths of concrete, acrylic glass, and MDF laminated or painted pink, which further juxtaposes their aesthetic and conceptual volatility, as well as renders them unfit for consumption; their eccentric connections to one another suggest the biopolitics of breeding, the regulation of the path toward consumerhood, as well as the collective unchartedness of our civilization.
Helen Young Chang
My leg, 2017, soap 12,5 x 15 x 5 cm, Edition 10 + 2AP
Kerstin von Gabain visual language stems from her interest in anthropomorphism and her exploration into the relations between photography and sculpture. In 2011 she produced a black and white series of analog photographs during an extensive stay in Tokyo, which have since been exhibited at Gabriel Senn Galerie, Wien (2012) and 21er Haus, Belvedere, Wien (2015). The publication Out getting ribs reproduces the original series together with a text by Johann Neumeister and can also be seen as a homage to the classical Japanese photography book.
Kerstin von Gabain & Thea Moeller - El Centro, Petra Martinetz Galerie, Cologne, 4.11. – 6.11.2016
Even before Jack Kerouac, the expression „on the road“, was used as a synonym for boundless, limitless freedom. Kerstin von Gabain (*1979 in Palo Alto, USA) and Thea Moeller (*1985 in Hannover) were both artists in residence at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles when they met. „El Centro“ is the title of their collective exhibition at Gallery Martinetz, the title and the exhibition refer back to the experiences had during a road trip to „El Centro“, a Californian city at the border to Mexico. As distinct from one another as the works by these two artists is, both convey the greater possibilities inherent in sculpture.
Henrik Bündge
with Iris Dittler / Kerstin von Gabain / Evelyn Plaschg / Noushin Redjaian
Franz Amann / Carl Andre / John M Armleder / Richard Artschwager / Josef Bauer / Thomas Baumann / Julien Bismuth / Andy Boot / Herbert Brandl / Gilbert Bretterbauer / Cäcilia Brown&Wilhelm KLotzek / Andy Coolquitt / Andreas Duscha / Judith Fegerl / Robert Filliou / Dan Flavin / Andreas Fogarasi / Kerstin von Gabain / Gelatin / Julian Göthe / Manuel Gorkiewicz / Franz Graf / Eva Grubinger / Michael Gumhold / Robert F. Hammerstiel / Gregor Hildebrandt / Benjamin Hirte / Anna Jermolaewa / Donald Judd / Barbara Kapusta / Jakob Lena Knebl / Roland Kollnitz / Brigitte Kowanz / Susanne Kriemann / Sonia Leimer / Anita Leisz / Inés Lombardi / Constantin Luser / Dorit Margreiter, Ralo Mayer / Adam McEwen / Robert Morris / Marlie Mul / Ulrike Müller / Walter Obholzer / Lisa Oppenheim / Rudolf Polanszky / Rosa Rendl, Gerhard Richter / Valentin Ruhry / Fred Sandback / Stefan Sandner, Stefanie Seibold / Tony Smith / Daniel Spoerri / Lucie Stahl / Rudolf Stingel / Zin Taylor / Sofie Thorsen / Christoph Weber / Lois Weinberger / Franz West / Erwin Wurm / Heimo Zobernig / Franz von Zülow
Humorous performative interactions with sculpturally conceived everyday objects are among Kerstin von Gabain's characteristic methods of working. The photo series 6 Verbrecher was created as part of an exhibition at the Museum Applied Arts in Vienna, which was based on an examination of the museum's study collection. The photographs depict masterfully crafted examples of the bentwood chairs that enjoyed great popularity in the 19th century. Gabain presents them in an humanizing manner that borrows from pictorial composition techniques of 19th century portrait photography. The title's suggestion of personhood also emphasizes an anthropomorphic reading of the furniture. Through her use of photography, the artist references the medium's function as an instrument of scientific documentation, classification, and archiving in the context of museum collection practice. In addition to methods of systematization in the area of art history, the artist also alludes to psychoanalytical tendencies regarding (psycho-) pathological classifications in titles such as 6 Verbrecher or die Hysterikerin. With the logic-defying titles she gives the objects, the artist humorously stretches conventional scientific classification to the point of absurdity.
Veronique Apburg
Nadja Bournonville / Kerstin von Gabain / Zenita Komad / Eva Kotátková / Anja Manfredi / Nadim Vardag
Kerstin von Gabain’s photographic and sculptural works frequently engage with historic exhibits and collected artefacts; she is particularly interested in typologies and classifications as well as the as the principles underlying the exhibitions of historic collections. By making small interventions, altering positions and combining artefacts with objects from outside the collection, whether items she has produced herself or found objects, she wrests the pieces away from from the association of the museum classification or function and confers upon them both a tangible human touch and entirely new meanings. For the exhibition at the Josephinum, Kerstin von Gabain has created a new neon piece - a winking eye, installed on the buildings facade, which is currently undergoing renovation work. A key point of departure for this work was the publication Learning from Las Vegas (1972) by the American architects and theorists Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown. In it, they tackle the way that buildings can embody a particular iconography, or can communicate by means of symbols. This reference, taken together with the work’s title Hello, I Like Youand the motif of both the eye itself, and its winking, go beyond indications drawing our attention to the building and its contents: they represent the humanisation of the building, which in turn sends out an invitation to communicate. At the same time, the eye, which hangs high above the main entrance, is reminiscent of the ides and symbolism of the Enlightment, to which Joseph II the founder of the Josephinum, devoted himself in his comprehensive reform efforts.
M.S /C.B
Hello, I like you 2016, permanent neon light installation, Josephinum, Vienna
Für Garderobe wird nicht gehaftet, Angwandte Innovation Laboratory, Vienna, 10.12.2015 – 17.01.2016, kuratiert von Studierende des /ecm-Masterlehrgangs 2014-16
with Marlene Agreiter / Anja Ray Alturban / ANTICOOL COMPANY / Cloed Baumgartner / Kemi Bassene / Ruth Beckermann / Anna-Sophie Berger / Jürgen Böheimer / Gerda Buxbaum / Dies Irae / Josef Divéky / Renate Dworschak / Sonja Eismann / Elisabeth Frottier / Kerstin von Gabain, Martin Gabriel/Micha Payer / Karlla Girotto / Barbara Graf / Franz Graf / Nilbar Güreş / Monika Haas / Markus Hausleiter / Sanja Iveković / Song Jing / Birgit Jürgenssen / Nunu Kaller / Afra Kirchdorfer / Angela Klos / Jakob Lena Knebl / Kollektiv [U+29B2+29BC+327E+25CD] / Katharina Kugler / Adele List / Inés Lombardi / László Lukács / Walter Lunzer / Katharina Mischer/Thomas Traxler / Sandra Monterroso / Andrew Morgan / Klaus Mühlbauer / Lisa Muhr / Stephanie Müller/Klaus Erich Dietl / Ute Neuber / Oswald Oberhuber / Ona B. / Painted / Olivera Parlić / Moritz Piffl / Paul de Reus / Ramona Rieder / Herbert Rieger / ROUGE (Jelena Fužinato/Bojana Stamenković) / Evamaria Schaller / Markus Schinwald / Rosemarie Trockel / Walter Van Beirendonck / Ari Versluis & Ellie Uyttenbroek / Michael Wachtel / Friederike von Wedel-Parlow / Vivienne Westwood / Angela Wiedermann
Objets Trouves, Hofstätter Projekte, Vienna, 20.5. – 17.7.2015, curated by Edelbert Köb, Photo: Sophie Thun
with Hannes Böck / Kerstin von Gabain / Guido Kucsko
The exhibits of Kerstin von Gabain, also working analog, follow another classic strategy of fine art photography, which is typology. Using the example of six versions of the type chair and cabinet, she refers to the differences within the homogeneous. She aims less at the suggestion of the seemingly endless variety of functional and stylistic diversity of such objects, but rather at their ‘family resemblance’ as put forward by Ludwig Wittgenstein, who layered glass negatives of photographs of his siblings to make the common threads of all individuals in a group visible. The photographs of different backrests of the classic Thonet chair as well as the upper portions of Baroque cabinets can also be read as faces. Wax casts of cabinet feet support the game with figurative associations accelerated by the artist and at the same time undermine the formal rigor of both photo series. They also produce a spatial relationship between the images of the objects and their real corporeality. Both the casting and the photograph are technical processes in which, finally, a positive imprint originates from a negative.
Edelbert Köb
with Adrian Alecu / Ovidiu Anton / Anna Artaker / Kurdwin Ayub / Josef Bauer / Cäcilia Brown / Adrian Buschmann / Hugo Canoilas / Julian Charrière / Mitya Churikov / Los Destinados (Julius Deutschbauer/Klaus Pobitzer/Panos Mylonas), Eva Egermann / Christian Eisenberger / Christian Falsnaes / Marina Faust / Lukas Feigelfeld / Daniel Ferstl / Andreas Fogarasi / Heinz Frank / Heribert Friedl / Peter Fritzenwallner / G.R.A.M. / Kerstin von Gabain / Till Gathmann / Aldo Giannotti / Sofia Goscinski / Julian Göthe / Eva Grubinger / Harald Gsaller / Rebekka Hagg / Michael Heindl / Nicholas Hoffman / Ana Hoffner / David Jourdan / Barbara Kapusta / Eric Kläring / Tonio Kröner / Tina Lechner / Sonia Leimer / Paul Leitner / Constantin Luser / Nana Mandl / Christian Mayer / Ralo Mayer / Sarah Mendelsohn / Melitta Moschik / Hans Nevidal / Josip Novosel / Denise Palmieri / Michael Part / Nicola Pecoraro / permanent breakfast (Friedemann Derschmidt/Abbé Libansky/Karin Schneider/Barbara Zeidler), Lilly Pfalzer/Sergio Valenzuela / Karin Pliem / Johannes Porsch / Hanna Putz / Andreas Reiter Raabe / Ritornell / Valentin Ruhry / Maruša Sagadin / Ari Sariannidis / Johann Schoiswohl, Leander Schönweger, Misha Stroj, Philipp Timischl, Jenni Tischer / Octavian Trauttmansdorff / Nadim Vardag / Salvatore Viviano / Astrid Wagner / Tanja Widmann / Birgit Zinner
Markus Amm & Kerstin von Gabain, Sammlung Lenikus, Vienna, 22.4 – 30.4.2015
Rome Residency April - June 2015
Bad Pringle, Gabriele Senn Galerie, Vienna, 20.3. – 23.4.2015
At the center of the current exhibition is von Gabain’s more recent occupation with mold making and casting. Casting and analogue photography both rely on complementarity for reproduction of analog prints and casts: Both techniques use a negative in order to make a positive imprint. In preparation for the exhibition, von Gabain casted a set of objects in plaster to be then photographed with the purpose of highlighting this duality again. As her work progressed she began to experiment with color, as well as new materials, such as concrete, wax and polyester and using color film. Through casting various materials on top of each other and using vivid colors, her objects evoke different associations, such as layers of earth or melted candy. Thus the works are given another more carnal and playful dimension that is emphasized even more by the display and arrangement of these. von Gabain is continuously evolving her work, constantly modifying, re-editing and re-adapting her approach, often referencing and sampling her own past exhibitions.
Bad pringle by Johann Neumeister
The Art Gallery of Rogues, Büro Weltausstellung, Wiener Art Foundation, Vienna, 13.3. – 27.3.2015
why is batman actually not called mouseman considering he has much more in common with the ordinary house mouse than with bats? even though he has a cave, he doesnt inhabit it but uses it only as a hiding place in case of danger, similar to a mouse retreating into a hole. he also doesnt sleep there hanging from the ceiling but does so in a warm bed in a villa. everyone who ever suffered a mouse infestation knows all to well that these animals have a marked preference for nesting in beds, blankets and cushions. bats on the contrary do keep their bodies mutually warm while sleeping and are therefore mostly found in larger groups, forming colonies. batman on the other hand is a loner. also he is not capable of active flight. he only glides through the air with his cape because he neither has webbed wings like bats nor superhuman powers like superman for instance. he only pretends to be flying, like a mouse with a parachute would. but the most important feature that both batman and mice dont share with bats are fangs and the sucking of blood. although very view species of bats actually do drink blood, the image of the bat as a vampire is nonetheless so prevalent in our culture that one has to assume that also in the case of batman this association will sooner or later suggest itself to everyone. but if batman is by name a bat ergo vampire, then why does he have all the traits of a harmless little house mouse and none of the bloodsucking and infectious bats/vampires? the answer to this question is quite simple: because batman is a vampire pretending to be a mouse.
Johann Neumeister
Der Blick und das Queren, Markhof 2, 21.2. - 20.3.2015, curated by Martin Vesely
Kerstin von Gabain / Robert Gruber / Anja Manfredi / Mads Westrup
with Miles Aldridge / Nobuyoshi Araki / Diane Arbus / Rudolf Bacher / Georg Baselitz / Franz von Bayros / Cecil Beaton / Vanessa Beecroft / Richard Billingham / Herbert Boeckl / Pierre Bonnard / Marino Bovi / Cecily Brown / Agostino Carracci / Jota Castro / Jake & Dinos Chapman / Anetta Mona Chia & Lucia Tkácová / Larry Clark / Francesco Clemente / Gustave Courbet / Michael Craig-Martin / Gregory Crewdson / John Currin / David Dawson / Lucinda Devlin / Philip-Lorca diCorcia / Otto Dix / Sante D’Orazio / Leopold Johann Dorfstätter / Marcel Duchamp / Jimmie Durham / Martin Eder / Elmgreen & Dragset / Tracey Emin / James Ensor / VALIE EXPORT / Werner Feiersinger / Martha Fein / Domenico Fiasella / Urs Fischer / Fischli & Weiss / Peter Flötner / Lavinia Fontana / Heinz Frank / Lucian Freud / Kerstin von Gabain / Ryan Gander / Artemisia Gentileschi / Bruno Gironcoli / Robert Gober / Nan Goldin / Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster / Douglas Gordon / Antony Gormley / Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes / Heidi Harsieber / Mona Hatoum / Damien Hirst / Howard Hodgkin / Ludwig Hoffenreich / Richard Horlemann / Rachel Howard / Alfred Hrdlicka / Jörg Immendorff / Birgit Jürgenssen / Johanna Kampmann-Freund / Herwig Kempinger / Fritz Kern / Anselm Kiefer / Martin Kippenberger / Douglas Kirkland / Ronald Brooks Kitaj / Gustav Klimt / Pierre Klossowski / Jannis Kounellis / Paul Kranzler / Alfred Kubin / Hans Kupelwieser / Yayoi Kusama / Jim Lambie / Maria Lassnig / Louise Lawler / Gonzalo Lebrija / Erich Lessing / Sherrie Levine / Max Liebermann / Pietro Falca detto Longhi / Los Carpinteros / Sarah Lucas / Meister mit den Blumenrahmen / Meister der Divisio Apostolorum / Meister von Großgmain / Inge Morath / Otto Muehl / Ugo Mulas / Vik Muniz / Johann Michael Neder / Shirin Neshat / Helmut Newton / Hermann Nitsch / Yoko Ono / Pablo Ruiz Picasso / Walter Pichler / Giulia Piscitelli / Michelangelo Pistoletto / Robert Polidori / Robert Rauschenberg / Man Ray / Josef Karl Rädler / Johann Baptist Reiter / Bettina Rheims / Gerhard Richter / John Riddy / Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn / Thomas Ruff / Ed Ruscha / Erich Salomon / Caspar Franz Sambach / Egon Schiele / Markus Schinwald / Gundula Schulze Eldowy / Johnnie Shand Kydd / Sudarshan Shetty / Dayanita Singh / Alexandre Vincent Sixdeniers / Jan van der Straet / Mikhael Subotzky / Harunobu Suzuki / Antoni Tàpies / Juergen Teller / Liliane Tomasko / Oliviero Toscani / Rosemarie Trockel / Kaari Upson / Borjana Ventzislavova / Manfred Wakolbinger / Nari Ward / Franz West / Rachel Whiteread / Francesca Woodman / Tobias Zielony und Gilberto Zorio
with Ismini Adami / Helene van Duijne / Kerstin von Gabain / Sophie Thun
Objects of China, Sotheby’s Artist Quarterly, Vienna, April – June 2014
In her exhibition Objects of China, Kerstin von Gabain presents a series of black and white silkscreen prints that take images of taxidermy specimens – rats and birds – as their subject. The artist works with glass magic lantern slides discovered in China, the original purpose of which remains a puzzle. The cleaned slides, whose images Kerstin von Gabain has transferred onto large-format paper by means of screen printing, display clearly visible shadows and grids. Are the latter a byproduct of the printing onto the glass plates, or are the images photographic reproductions of prints? While the shadows suggest that the images have been rephotographed, the origin of the grids remains unexplained. Through the medium of screen printing, the artist succeeds in allowing the various layers of the image, the coarsely grained network of lines, and the interplay of shadows to flow together on paper to form a single entity: In addition to the mosaic-like effect, the result is a monochrome interaction of two- and three-dimensional impressions that seem to struggle for supremacy within the image.
Raver geht ins archäologische Museum, Secession, Vienna, 11.4. –8.6.2014, Photo: Jorit Aust
The photographs of plaster casts of limbs—some embedded in narrative theatrical productions—and assemblages made of plaster fragments are based on Gabain’s extended experimentation with the sculptures. Rather than being the final product at the end of an artistic process, her sculptures represent a starting point for playful enactments which she then captures in analogue, black-and-white photographs. The artist photographed the individual sculptures isolated against a black or grey background with a seemingly objective eye—an eye that imitates the sober and systematic recording of objects in a style reminiscent of the photographs used to document and inventory collections in museums or for scientific research.
Bettina Spörr/Herwig Kempinger
Rave/Health, 2014, Plaster, leather, metal, each 32 x 27 x 9 cm, Secession, Photo: Jorit Aust
If sports is the brother of labor, then art is the cousin of unemployment, CAMP, Athens, 13.9 – 11.10.2013, curated by Panos Papadopolous and Nino Stelzl
with Ismini Adami / Eleni Bagaki / Margarita Bofiliou / L&A lonas/The Callas / Shirin Charlot / Cut and Scrape / Helene van Duijne / Marina Faust / Michael Fischer / Kerstin von Gabain / Markus Geiger / Martin Grandits / Mario Grubisic / Axel Huber / Anna Jemolaewa / Katerina Kana / Marika Konstantinidou / Chrysanth / Kournianaki / Michael Lukas / Albert Mayr / Milan Mladenovic / Johann Neumeister / Kosmas Nikolaou / Katherina Olschbauer / Panos Papodopolous / Elisbeth Penker / Rade Petrasevic / Chloe Potter / Quenberger vs Elin / Björn Segschneider / Nino Stelzl / Lilli Thiessen / Amalia Vekri / Sanja Velickovic / Paki Vlassopoulou / Selena Vronti / Krina Vronti / Valerios / Dorota Walentynowics / Hans Weigand / Lukas Willmann / Woozy
It is in a targeted manner that Kerstin von Gabain reacts both to the “clean” aesthetic of the MAK Study Collection and to the scholarly paradigm of museum practice. Her medical-seeming sculptural interventions and strictly stylized photographs of objects allude quite deliberately to scenarios from a sanatorium or hospital. In her series of sculptures, the artist bandages and treats her previously “injured” pieces of furniture in a manner that is playfully medical, presenting scenes of imaginary suffering and abnormalities. She distributes her being-like objects around the room much like a hospital might distribute its patients. Von Gabain also photographs seating furniture from the MAK Furniture and Woodwork Collection. In doing so, her intent is to appropriate the classical pictorial composition and technique used in 19th-century medical portrait photography, as well as 19th-century methods of criminalistics. Photography as an archival tool and viewing material for phenomenological-empirical study and/or classification is of interest to the artist in the context of her examination of the MAK Study Collection. By way of parody, von Gabain also uses names, pathological systematizations, and subject typologies from the 19th century for her works’ titles. She presents objects in light of how they deviate from the norm, lending them a freak-like status. In this way, she compares the classification scheme of a knowledge-oriented display collection with that of a cabinet of curiosities. The objects, some of which seem comically monstrous, thus become a projective surface for both subjective states and institutional patterns of classification.
Janina Falkner
Walkthrough - City of Broken Furniture by Johann Neumeister
Out getting ribs, Gabriele Senn Galerie, Vienna, 23.3. – 28.4.2012
Last year I got the opportunity to live and work in Tokyo for a few months. When I arrived at the studio in Arakawa (a suburb of Tokyo, that has a partnership and some similarities with the district Floridsdorf of Vienna), I found a clinically sterile cleaned and empty house. Just the closets were crammed with obviously very old, worn-out mattresses. Probably each mattress tells its own story. The ground floor of the house had a traditional “Japanese room”. Here I started to tie up the mattresses in order to photograph them. After the work was done, I untied the mattresses and packed them away, only to take them out later to tie them up again. My procedure corresponded to the conception of how a traditional Japanese room is used; After an activity used items, such as furniture, are packed away neatly. With its strict division into a certain number of “tatamis” (rice mats) the room provided a three-dimensional grid for my tied up creatures – just like a 3D graphic program. I photographed efficiently, without a tripod, balancing on a ladder, shooting my subjects from all possible perspectives using an analog camera, which decisively influenced my workflow. To see the results, I had to wait for the development of the film rolls in the laboratory, which in this case meant several trips to the other side of Tokyo. Many rolls were under- or overexposed, blurry and out of focus. Some “bindings” were photogenic, whereas others did not do so well on film. Some films turned out better, while others less, just like my days in Tokyo.
Walkthrough – Out getting ribs by Johann Neumeister
