PRESS RELEASE
FUTURA and Karlin Studios
in cooperation with Kunstraum Niederösterreich
are pleased to introduce the project
PROFILER
Opening: Thursday, May 18th from 6 pm
Exhibition Dates: May 18th – July 2nd 2006
Participating artists:
Judith Fegerl, Nikolaus Gansterer, Siggi Hofer, Jochen Höller, Anna Jermolaewa, Stephan Lugbauer, Élise Mougin
Concept: Christiane Krejs and Verena Kaspar
PROFILER” – Taking an artist’s approach to regional identity.
For the exhibition “Profiler” the artists are entering into new territory with the use of the term “profiling”, which is normally reserved for describing a method of offender analysis in criminology. It is taken to refer, in this context, to an artistic method of researching a region’s geography, its traditions and identity.
Seven artists joined forced to collaborate on a project on the theme of “Lower Austria”. Using different media, their perceptions and constructions of reality still revealed a common thread. “Profiler” presents original and new ways of looking at the Austrian federal state of Lower Austria. Beyond traditional clichés, the artists discovered subtle nuances and surprising perspectives.
Going on an excessive tour in search of Lower Austrian wine, Anna Jermolaewa, a native of St. Petersburg, originally, also took along a video camera. The resultant film will be shown at the exhibition as a silent witness of an intense research effort.
Élise Mougin opened the pages of a Gargantuan sculptural book to deal with the relationship between the individual and the collective. Visualising the number of people living on Earth at a given point in time with dots, she found she had to create a separate edition for the population of Lower Austria.
The city, the countryside, the local style of architecture, the Home Counties, the individual and the community – these were the topics that kept cropping up in Siggi Hofer’s drawings.
In his large-format ink and water-colour drawing “Voglio spazio per crescere”, “I Want Space to Be Able to Grow In”, he is not depicting any particular landscape or region. He is dealing, instead, with the process of growing and creating of space in a philosophical sense.
Nikolaus Gansterer in his work, “unland”, views a geographical region as perceptional grid and finely woven social fabric. His paper sculpture is reminiscent of a cloud, an iceberg or an island – just not of any real landscape.
The feeling of being at home and sheltered is the theme of Judith Fegerl’s sculpture “Nest”, where infrared rays convey to the visitors, as they walk below the ceramic lamps, a feeling of wamth.
A Pretty Piece – used to be part of an advertising slogan for Lower Austria – which Jochen Höller has glued onto four vacuum cleaners. The number refers to the structure of the state, with its four quarters. By relocating all contexts, a subtle system of codes and references unfolds.
As for the Lower Austrian custom of firing off rifles at wedding receptions, Stephan Lugbauer took it as his point of departure for his two-part work. It consists of a life-sized video projection and a photograph depicting the installation at the Art Space Noe. If the individual elements, the cannon, the bride or the house are pulled from the overall context, the patterns of perception are drastically altered. The harmonic and peaceful association of the general environment soon gives way to a threatening, warlike atmosphere.)
The project has been realized with kind support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and *BUNDESKANZLERAMT:KUNST*