Ines Lombardi, Christoph Meier and Alfons Egger
Friedrichstraße 12
A-1010 Wien
T.+43-1-587 53 07-11
F.+43-1-587 53 07-34
office [at] secession.at
www.secession.at
PAST PRESENT – CLOSE AND DISTANT
25 February–15 May 2011
INÉS LOMBARDI
Through endless variations and concatenations in a variety of media including photography and video as well as installations and objects, the artist demonstrates how complex human perception is. Space plays a significant role in her presentation of her works, which perpetually call for new contexts and settings that endow them with fresh meaning.
The new series Past Present—Close and Distant, which Inés Lombardi developed for her exhibition at the Secession, continues this process. Using two gardens by the Brazilian landscape architect and painter Roberto Burle Marx as her point of departure, she examines the relationship between past and present and addresses questions of identity and diversity. Further aspects of her investigation concern the Self and the Other and the internalization of the alien, nature as a construct, modernity in Brazil, and the formation of national identities. Her researches are based on the writings of travelers and explorers, the Romantic naturalism of the nineteenth century, and our own complex relationships to this part of our history.
Inés Lombardi, b. São Paulo (BR) 1958, lives and works in Vienna (AT).
CHRISTOPH MEIER
25 February–15 May 2011
Alongside the motifs of duplication, doubles, and repetition, copying is a central theme in Christoph Meier’s exhibition: the existence of the original and the copy, plus a copy of the copy, strongly suggest not only a plot, but also a system and a structure. This manifests itself on various levels:
For Meier, copying something is among the most important procedures of artistic creativity.
The copied objects are based on a set of plinths chosen, put together, and commented on for Christoph Meier by Francesco Stocchi. While the originals are often highly complex, Meier has reduced the models to the simplest of basic forms, in some cases only roughly recreated, so that new objects are developed.
In the exhibition, Christoph Meier has also included a photocopier constantly producing a 16-page brochure with an essay by Francesco Stocchi and images of Meier’s sculptures. In this way, he integrates the copy as a print medium portraying the objects and the way they are handled. The photocopier is itself a plinth.
Christoph Meier, b. Vienna (AT) 1980, lives and works in Vienna (AT).
ALFONS EGGER
25 February–15 May 2011
In the Secession’s Grafisches Kabinett, Alfons Egger shows a large-scale text installation, confronting viewers with words which—deliberately or inadvertently—highlight the subtle indeterminacy characteristic of his oeuvre. From monochrome brown walls, equally monochrome brown letters 120 centimeters tall protrude 59 centimeters into the space, moving from the flatness of a work on paper into three-dimensional, sculptural space. They proclaim: “MAMA hilf MIR” (mama help me). Many and varied readings are possible: A hackneyed turn of phrase? An unrestrained artistic statement with an autobiographical element? A subtle reference to the Secession’s history as a reserve military hospital during World War II? All of these? Or something entirely different?
In outsize lettering, the artist demonstrates the ambiguity of human language and his own personal balancing acts between the media of drawing, installation, and theater.
Alfons Egger, b. Haiming (AT) 1952, lives and works in Vienna.
PRESS CONFERENCE: THURS FEB. 24, 2011, 10 A.M.
EXHIBITION OPENING: THURS FEB. 24, 2011, 7 P.M.
secession
Friedrichstraße 12, A-1010 Wien
T.+43-1-587 53 07-11, F.+43-1-587 53 07-34
office@secession.at, www.secession.at
Opening Hours: Tuesday through Sunday 10.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
Guided Tours: Saturdays at 3.00 p.m. and Sundays at 11.00 a.m. and by appointment
(maximum 25 persons)
Permanent Exhibition: Beethovenfries von Gustav Klimt
*Image above:
Photo by Beatrix Sunkovsky.
