Opening: Monday, 30 January, 7 p.m.
Introduction: Hemma Schmutz
Artist talk with Christina Werner:
Wednesday, 22 February, 7 p.m.
sponsored by: BKA Kunst; MA7-Kultur; Cyberlab
Since 2010 the FOTOGALERIE WIEN has put on an annual solo exhibition showcasing the work of a young, upcoming artist. This series of exhibitions, SOLO, functions as a platform and springboard for artists who are at the beginning of their career but who already have an extensive body of work that could be presented to a wider public with advantage. The aim is to achieve a sustainable level of public presence for the chosen artist and includes helping to organize cooperations and touring shows. For SOLO VIII we have invited the artist Christina Werner.
Christina Werner was born in 1976 in Baar (CH). She studied photography and media art at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. Today she lives and works in Vienna. In recent years the artist has become increasingly concerned with the effects of globalisation and especially with current migration issues, the resurgence of nationalism and questions of representation.
In her first comprehensive retrospective she is presenting four projects, one of which, the large scale work Something Is Always Left Behind is a new combination of two pre-existing projects, Neues Europa and The Boys Are Back. The central work of the Neues Europa presentation is a 106-page booklet that is free to visitors. It stages a collision between media images and quotations from right wing populism and racist activities with pictures and descriptions of the scenes of crimes perpetrated against, and memorials to, victims. In addition, part of this project is a wall installation of fragmentary images of people at right-wing events, short film excerpts from nationalistic speeches and the text panel, The Boys Are Back, which allows a palpable change of mood.
Reflecting Pools is Werner’s most current project and it concerns the memorial culture at ground zero in New York. The images talk of a huge police presence, massive interventions in public space – like cordon barriers – and US American patriotism. The pictures and the photo book are combined with a video with Donald Trump (post 9/11), talking about a new building that has to be ‘huge and majestic’. Issues of urban development and national identity connect Reflecting Pools with the installation, Pipal, which also comprises a number of parts and is a documentation of the Sabarmati Riverfront Project in Ahmedabad in India.
The title of the exhibition derives from a Thomas Heise quotation: “There is always something left over, a remainder, that doesn’t quite fit. And then the pictures just lie around and wait for history.”
(textual support: Hemma Schmutz)