Opening: Monday, 7. May @ 7:00PM
Opening Speech: Juliane Feldhoffer
PROVOCATION? I – Social Denial
This year the Fotogalerie Wien emphasizes the theme Provocation?. Probing the question regarding content such as conventional stimulus and potential provocation in the thinking of contemporary artists and try with a series of three exhibitions to investigate these positions.
The first presentation in this series of exhibitions is a show of the German photo-artist Michael Janiszewski. Janiszewski has been working with staged photography since the early 90’s. The generally comical pictorial order has a starting point which he in an amateur like and therefore a very private graceful way with an instamatic camera banished to a piece of paper, look at first glance like a secret excessive life which is disapproved by the general public. Social political and religious values, which govern the outside world Janiszewski, juxtapose an irritating inner life.
There within the acting protagonist who is endangered to lose himself time and again in different grotesque rolls is exposed clearly visible in funhouse mirrors of a structured public opposition. They are nightmarish scenarios that Janiszewski brings to life and because of this very stimulating art they are never allowed to be fully accessible.