Opening: Monday 17. July, 19.00
Studio Discussion: 10. August, 19:00
ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS VIENNA
Schillerplatz 3, 1010 Vienna
Tue-Son 10.00 – 18.00 / closed in holidays
A catalog with a text by Ruth Horak and 30 color reproductions accompanies this exhibition. The 40 page catalog with texts in both English and German is available for € 11. Also a hand signed Lambda-Print (Edition-Werkschau Nr.5) 30 x 60 cm in a limited edition of 25, is being offered for € 200.
Anyone who loves their art looks to experience the nature of their technique.
(Dziga Vertov)
The 11th presentation of Werkschau in the Fotogalerie Wien highlights Tamara Horakova + Ewald Maurer. They are two outstanding Austrian artists working in the medium of photography.
Tamara Horakova + Ewald Maurer (both born 1947) have selected works created since 1996 that illustrate their constructive collaboration. The basis of their work originates from the visual arts. Both studied at the Academy of Visual Arts where this exhibition is taking place. They regard their photographic image as something to be constructed, which targets identification with the subject and not simply the pure image. The image is a result of the artistic components, from the materials (light, time, angle) or in regards to the process (test strips) and from the studio (stored paper rolls, backdrops on the walls, or the computer).
Tha manner in which Horakova + Maurer work is less a function of the Modern, as fashionable since the 90’s, (with the exception of their series about Mies van der Rohe’s Tugenhat) than a continuous explanation for the autonomous status of the artwork, for inherent laws, self reflection and a personal theoretical domain. (Also see their publication “image:/images Views on Contemporary Photography” with contributions from influential Theorists).
The difference between the photograph and reality is at the same time its delineation of the image to the public space. Their photography makes the schooled analysis insecure because they do not play with the theme of desire or spectacle, although they are actually lavishly produced large format photographs. They succeed in making one apprehensive because they are not symbolic or narrative but because it is literally apparent what they are.
Horakova+Maurers works have recently been shown in the exhibition ‘Simultaneous – two Collections of Austrian Photography” at the Museum of Modern Art in Salzburg. They publish many books and were awarded in 2001 the Photography Review Prize.