Opening and Catalogue Presentation:
Monday, 22 June, 7 p.m.
Introduction: Werner Fenz
Artist talk with PRINZGAU/podgorschek and “Eskalationsschach”: Thursday, 9 July, 7 p.m.
Sponsored by: BKA Kunst; MA7-Kultur; Kulturland Oberösterreich, pixelstorm, Cyberlab
WERKSCHAU XX is the continuation of the annual series of exhibitions in the FOTOGALERIE WIEN which has been going on for the last twenty years. They present contemporary artists who have significantly contributed to the development of art photography and the new media in Austria. To date there has been a cross section of work by Jana Wisniewski, Manfred Willmann, VALIE EXPORT, Leo Kandl, Elfriede Mejchar, Heinz Cibulka, Renate Bertlmann, Josef Wais, Horáková + Maurer, Gottfried Bechtold, Friedl Kubelka, Branko Lenart, INTAKT – Die Pionierinnen (Renate Bertlmann, Moucle Blackout, Linda Christanell, Lotte Hendrich-Hassmann, Karin Mack, Margot Pilz, Jana Wisniewski), Inge Dick, Lisl Ponger, Hans Kupelwieser, Robert Zahornicky, Ingeborg Strobl and Michael Mauracher. For WERKSCHAU XX we have invited the artist couple PRINZGAU/podgorschek; they live in Vienna and work as a duo since 1984.
For WERKSCHAU XX entitled Ganz Ohne TiTel PRINZGAU/ podgorschek have developed an interdisciplinary exhibition concept which is specifically planned for the gallery space and focuses on photography and film.
It will show a cross-section of their extensive and multi-facetted work with older and more recent works and approaches. The WERKSCHAU can be regarded as an extention of PAARLÄUFER, a 2004 video documenting the two artists’ 20 years collaboration. Short videos and collected picture material will be integrated into the exhibition in the form of an installative context. Using a semi-documentary approach PRINZGAU/podgorschek weave together everyday observations and statements into an essay-like narrative – short stories about various subjects arising during the realisation of projects. The thematic focus of their conceptual oeuvre is on social and political issues, their engagement with architecture as well as on questioning conventional patterns of perception – always implemented with a great deal of humour, symbolic and associative references and irritating solutions. For over 30 years PRINZGAU/podgorschek have worked in very differing mediums: sculpture, objects, interventions in public space, land art, installation, painting, collage, film and photography. They frequently employ Arte Povera materials and found objects that are opened up to reinterpretation by the artistic processes to which they are subjected. On the one hand their collaborative work leaves space for individual ideas while at the same time it bundles the individual objects and images into a joint artistic oeuvre.
(textual support: Werner Fenz)