Horror Vacui
curated by Mahony
Gallery Layr Wuestenhagen Contemporary, Vienna
Marius Engh, Constantin Luser, Simon Faithfull, Mahony,
Michael Müller, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Misha de Ridder
Layr Wuestenhagen Contemporary, Vienna
Exhibition: 19.9.-8.11.2008
Seven international artistic positions revolving around the topic of horror vacui have been selected for this exhibition. A thematic bridge is built from political conflicts through subjective notions to the Voyage into Nothingness. At the beginning of the exhibition there is an induction globe, a model of Earth abstracted to its spherical geometric form. Marius Engh (N, 1974) has contributed the sculpture Hotel California, a monochrome semi-transparent movable wall, and Gulfstream V, a photographic piece in four parts. Engh´s pieces, which seem formal, are based on a detailed examination of precise political practices. Constantin Luser (A, 1976) studies his own thoughts with cartographic means in his detailed drawings and thus brings to the fore his subjective world outlook. The video piece Escape No. 6 by Simon Faithfull is based on a performance, in which he let a chair ascend into the stratosphere using a registering balloon. The video ends with the signal of the radio-controlled camera attached to the balloon breaking off. Michael Müller (D,1970) uses scientific representations of solar systems and galaxies as basis for his own freely interpreted drawings. In the sound piece To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause by Christodoulos Panayiotou (CYP, 1978) a compilation of seven songs from American musicals can be heard, which bring meteorological phenomena in connection with political utopias.These were recorded live during a performance on board of a ship by the Danish singer Kristian Kristensen, and later pressed on vinyl. Misha de Ridder (NL, 1972), who concentrates in his large-format photographs on the unimportant, the fleeting and the non-existent, shows the picture of a river landscape in the fog, which identifies itself only by its title, Niagara. For mahony, who have the twin roles of artists and curators of this exhibition, the incorporation of additional artistic ideas signifies a necessary extension of the perspectives on this topic. The last room of the gallery, the garage, refers to the general process of creation/production. The induction globe of the first room is translated there into the two-dimensional representation of the sphere and the potato is the basic working material, providing the segments as well as the letters for the printing of the exhibition poster. The work In A Land Far Far Away by Rhina Banerjee was another piece they wanted to show. For it was impossible to lend it, they decided to rebuild the work. The thus developed object mirrors the original inits basic form and size and is called In A Land Far Away.
Layr Wuestenhagen on Horror Vacui
