Opening: Monday 04. September, 7:00pm
Opening Speech: Ruth Horak
F O T O G A L E R I E W I E N
Währinger Strasse 59, 1090 Wien
Tue – Fri 14.00 – 19.00, Sat 10:00-14.00
The gallery is closed on holidays.
CROSSOVER – FOCAL POINTS 2006 of the FOTOGALERIE WIEN
This year’s focal point presents works from artists who not only use the medium of photography but also combine it with other mediums, artists whose concept over the years has followed this mixing of photography with other art practices.
We have also thought out for the first time for Crossover, in the sense of a border crossing, a shared project authorship.
The gallery collective has invited three Austrian positions (Gerda Lampalzer & Manfred Opperman: photography-film, Eva Schegel: photography-painting, Alian Production: photography-media art).
These artists were requested to invite another artist in order to help expand and congeal the theme.
CROSSOVER II – Cars On the Beach
Light is an essential element in photography and takes a central position in both the works from Eva Schlegel and the invited artist Erik Steffensen. So Cars on the Beach, the subtitle of the exhibition shows vistas of the ocean’s horizon in Iceland taken by Eva Schlegel and views in and out of cars from different parts of the world like America China and Japan photographed by Erik Steffensen.
The represented motifs stand for space and timelessness and touch upon themes such as travel distance and desire. Schlegel’s static elapsed time exposures of clouds and waves, which steadily and continuously change in form, color, and substance, convene on the horizontal line of the ocean, allows for a painterly picture to arise. On closer observation the divide between sky and water begins to vanish. By this mirror effect, the approach of lightness to darkness and the development of the light values a meditative character is produced. Schlegel’s photographs are dominated by the light conditions creating a colorfulness that changes between the black and white and the silver and blue tones.
The photographs from Erik Steffensen are monochromatic. To deal with the monochromatic colors and motifs an intensive debate is based on the history of painting and the light. Represented is the aesthetic of the everyday: autos, windows, mirrors and figures. China Blue is a blue tinted view through a car’s windshield strives for the timeless expression of a painting. Any sense of time or season is neutralized by the color filter. Atmosphere and space as well as narration are the focal points of his interests and set due to painting a connection to films and early photography.