on Mahony
Mahony was founded in 2002.
The members are Stephan Kobatsch, Jenny Wolka and and Clemens Leuschner.
All three currently live and work in Vienna and Berlin.
Much of Mahony´s artistic production derives from wellknown and unknown historical facts. This kind of appropriation in Mahony-terms always means questioning, transforming, translating, re-associating and reactivating the chosen topic. With this process they form new rhizomatic nets making connections from past to present, paths that go across geographical and historical zones, social and political contexts. They alienate the viewer by translating found material from ancient times into ours or from one culture into another. At the beginning of a project oftentimes stands a journey to places like Yucatan (2011), Ushuaia (2009) and Brasil (by cargoship, 2009). Therefore works that emerge in public space or in the countryside are later continued in the studio and vice versa. The media and material that Mahony use are diverse, the group works with video, photo, print, collage, sculpture, performance, urban intervention and installation.
Victoria Dejaco, 2011
Searching without finding and seeing-sight with Mahony
Founded in 2002, Mahony is an artist collective comprised of Stephan Kobatsch, Jenny Wolka, and Clemens Leuschner. Developing an “aesthetic umbrella” under which to organize all of their multifarious activities, their collaborative production alludes to a decentered subjectivity, a collectivity not contingent on a singular identity. An assertion of mutual exposure and the overlay of different viewpoints, their name also takes on the image of other characters that are regarded by a single name in the popular imaginary. Indicating collaboration not only between the agents, but also between the group and numerous other communities and conspirators (including the audience, fabricators, invited assistants, unexpected associates, and even in dialogue with figures and communities from the past), their collective identity resonates with Jean-Luc Nancy’s assertion (in his book Être singulier pluriel [Being Singular Plural], 2000) that: “There is no meaning if meaning is not shared, and not because there would be an ultimate or first signification that all beings have in common, but because meaning is itself the sharing of Being.” Above all, Mahony’s practice is an investigation into epistemology, conjoining, comparing, and contrasting distinct forms of knowledge production to arrive at aesthetic and conceptual constellations that are greater than the sum of its parts. Their work deals with such themes as speculation, site specificity, material transformation, geography, and measurement, and they use abstract processes to orient themselves and their work in order to elaborate spatio-temporal displacement in artifacts and gestures. With backgrounds in stage design, photography, media, and sculpture, their multidisciplinary projects draw from historical and contemporary narratives and phenomena and never rely on any set form or material. Instead, the artists emphasize a process-oriented approach where information is fed through a series of structural, material and conceptual mediations that often produces unexpected results. [...]
excerpt of the text "Searching without finding and seeing-sight with Mahony" by Post Brothers, 2013. The text is published in Mahony´s publication Seeing Sight
gallery representation Galerie Emanuel Layr
Andreas Duscha was member of the group until 2010 when he quit to concentrate on his solo projects.
Florian Zinke and Constantin Demner were members of Mahony in the early years.
Florian produced with Mahony the movie 51 Grad, took part in 16V sticht and Novemberrain. He lives in Bejing and is the owner of the filmproduction tree-house.
Constantin Demner took part in the projects 51 Grad, 16V sticht, Happy End Maschine
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