Iman Issa: Proxies, with a Life of Their Own

Iman Issa raises questions about the relevance of forms and iterates the past into virulent present. With her installations, films, publications, and sound works, Issa creates playful studies that allow viewers to experience the blind spots that run through present visions of the past. Historical artifacts, the genre of the artistic self-portrait, film sequences, the history of ideas, and cultural practices—such as museal conventions of showing and preserving—are drawn upon, variegated, and reinterpreted.

The works challenge the status commonly designated to the images, objects, descriptions, and subjects in the exhibition space by proposing different relationships between them. Each sculptural object, for example, is assigned a text precisely describing in straightforward language an existing object, painting, film scene, et cetera, however these written descriptions are incongruent with the sculptures presented. Although characterized by a high degree of precision and clarity, the individual elements of each work interact with each other and the viewer in a manner resembling a complicated conversation where basic terminology still needs to be negotiated . . . a process of perception that opens up essential questions instead of closing them.

For her first comprehensive solo exhibition in Austria, Issa has created numerous new works presented at the TAXISPALAIS within the context of her ongoing work series.

Curated by Nina Tabassomi