'A Space', temporary installation
'A Space', temporary installation
With the opening of 'A Space’, a three week long self imposed confinement ends for
Clemens Krauss. Within this period Krauss will have painted all the walls of the
gallery, which will resemble a huge fresco. The result is a wall painting measuring
one hundred square meters which will be taken down at the end of the show, and
therefore necessarily destroyed. Like Krauss’s paintings on canvas, 'A Space’
appears like a large pictogram. Seemingly randomly arranged figures are applied
directly onto the wall, which otherwise remains completely white.
The central concern in the work of Clemens Krauss is the human body. Due to his
medical-biological background (Krauss holds both a medical degree and a degree in
Fine Art) his investigations are often affected by natural science. Krauss uses his
own body as a model for the figures in 'A Space’, however he stresses that this
isn’t self-portraiture. On the contrary, their characters are difficult to
distinguish in terms of sex or age, and always remain anonymous. The arrangement of
the figures follow re-enacted situations found in images from the world of fashion,
sexuality and politics, however these situations are reinvented and recombined with
infinite complexity. The individual becomes two, the pair becomes a group.
The body as a scene of identity, individuality and society is the fundamental
concern of Krauss’s work. His work operates between performance, painting,
photography and site specific installation, each approach sharing the same
conceptual framework. The question of the relation between the outer appearance and
inner life of the body has been expanded by Krauss in both his painting series 'Das
Körperkörper-Problem (The Bodybody-Problem) from 2004 - 2006 and in his
series of photographs, entitled 'Look-alikes’ (2004 - 2006). For 'Look-alikes’
Krauss searched for genetically unrelated people who resembled one another. Another
problematic of body representation and perception occurs in the performance piece
'Sprechstunde (consultation hour)’. Here Krauss invites the spectator to participate
in a private medical discourse with him, within the partition space of the museum or
the gallery.
Clemens Krauss was born in 1978 in Graz, Austria, and now lives and works in Berlin
and Vienna. For the last three years he has exhibited in national and international
solo and group shows. Some of the exhibitions Krauss will make this year include,
'Die Jugend von heute’ at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt/M. and 'Anstoss Berlin’
at the Haus am Waldsee, Berlin.
The show 'A Space’ is also part of the Special Guest program of the 4th Berlin
Biennial.
Opening: 25th March 2006, 5 - 9 pm
DNA Berlin, Auguststrasse 20, 10117 Berlin Mitte
Tue - Fri 2 - 7 pm, Sat 11 am - 7 pm