Heimo Zobernig
9 May–22 November 2015
Austrian Pavilion
Giardini
Venice
Commissioner: Yilmaz Dziewior
Heimo Zobernig’s work is characterized by a high degree of formal and thematic precision. Since the start of his career he has made a point of exploring the fundamental premises of art, critically and with gusto, by using the respective presentational frameworks and modes of artistic expression themselves as tools for analytical reflection, which often endows them with a stage-like presence. In this spirit art’s miscellaneous constitutive aspects can themselves become the actual work.
Heimo Zobernig’s contribution to the 56th International Art Exhibition responds directly to the existing exhibition situation in the Austrian Pavilion designed by Josef Hoffmann and Robert Kramreiter and built in 1934, a structure that, with its classical rounded arches and majestic visual axes, on the one hand, and clear rational forms and modern construction materials, on the other, moves between the poles of historicism and modernism. With a black monolith that appears to hover under the ceiling casting its shade on the entire floor space of the pavilion, as well as a black floor construction that aligns the pavilion’s different floor levels, he renders invisible the historicizing architectural elements. At the same time, Zobernig’s complex intervention relativizes the bounds between architectural space and nature, inside and outside. His architectural intervention, whose isometric planes recall Mies van der Rohe’s Nationalgalerie in Berlin, together with the garden and rear wall that bounds the courtyard, constitutes an enclosed site where one can linger and reflect on art’s presentational modes and on human presence in space.
The “Patio for Heimo Zobernig” by the landscape architects Auböck + Kárász, a mellow grove, mingles with the architectural object. Midpoint of the “Journey of the Trees” begun at the Architecture Biennale 2014 as the “Gathering of the Trees” and ending in 2016 scattered over the exhibition grounds as abiding “Jewels for the Giardini”: Acer burgerianum, Acer viridis, Cercis siliquastrum, Gleditsia sunburst, Lagerstroemia indica, Liquidambar styraciflua, Nerium oleander, Parrotia persica vanessa, Punica granatum.
The Venice Biennale itself, no less than the specific site, is the starting point for Heimo Zobernig’s deliberations. How can one adequately contribute to an environment based on nation-states representativity where individual voices constantly compete for maximum attention? What phenomena are meaningful in such a context? And for precisely such purposes the Austrian Pavilion, with its classical as well as its modern formal language, offers an ideal exhibition space.
Contact
Austrian Pavilion
Biennale Arte 2015
c/o section.a
art.design.consulting gmbh
Praterstrasse 66/7a
A-1020 Vienna
info [at] austrianpavilion.at
Press officer: Kathrin Luz
Kathrin Luz Communication
Greesbergstrasse 5
D-50668 Cologne
press [at] austrianpavilion.at
Team
Commissioner: Yilmaz Dziewior
Curatorial Assistant/Project Coordination: Leonie Radine
Production: Katharina Boesch, Christine Haupt-Stummer (section.a)
Public Relations: Kathrin Luz, Jule Laerz (Kathrin Luz Communication)
VIP Manager: Christina Bartosch
Event Manager: Tomas Ewald (Solmarino)
Team Heimo Zobernig: Maria Huber, Eric Kläring, Georg Petermichl, Michaela Rapp-Zobernig
Architecture and Technical Coordination: Troels Bruun, Luca Ugolini (M+B studio)
Garden: Auböck + Kárász Landscape Architects
Design: Dorothea Brunialti
Website: Leopold Šikoronja
Catalogue Editing: Katrin Sauerländer
Tax Consultant: Georg Geyer, Kanzlei Geyer & Geyer
In 2015, the Austrian Pavilion was generously supported by: Ameon GmbH, Amt der Kärntner Landesregierung, ARTELIER COLLECTION GRAZ, Barta & Partner / AON Fine Art Risk Management, BIG – Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft m.b.H., Galería Juana de Aizpuru, Galerie Bärbel Grässlin, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Galerie Meyer Kainer, Galerie Nagel Draxler, Petzel Gallery, Phileas – A Fund for Contemporary Art, Privatkäserei Rupp, Russmedia, Simon Lee Gallery, Stefan Stolitzka, Vorarlberger Landesregierung, and other anonymous donors.
On behalf of the
