Heimo Zobernig
dal 17/10/2010 al 11/11/2010
Segnalato da
17/10/2010
Heimo Zobernig
Kiesler Foundation Vienna, Wien
The presentation of works by this year's Kiesler Prize winner, above all an installation that almost bursts the seams of the room at the Foundation, focuses above all on the historical development of the artistic environment. The 'Dramadisplay' icon that he developed specially for the exhibition suggests that the artist is interested not only in the designed object itself. Specifically, Zobernig is concerned with the relationship between an object and its setting.
The DRAMADISPLAY exhibition showcases works that not only reveal the similarities between Heimo Zobernig and the artist-architect Frederick Kiesler. The presentation of works by this year’s Kiesler Prize winner, above all an installation that almost bursts the seams of the room at the Kiesler Foundation Vienna, focuses above all on the historical development of the artistic environment.
Unlike Frederick Kiesler, who trusted in the potency of a catholic diversity of forms, Heimo Zobernig’s interventions seem characterised by moderate restraint. With economical means and subtle interventions, he explores the art object with regard to its causal function and purpose. The dramatic element of Zobernig’s works manifests itself in designs concentrated on a particular medium that, filled with inner tension, bond with their environment in a special manner.
The DRAMADISPLAY icon that he developed specially for the exhibition suggests that the artist is interested not only in the designed object itself. Specifically, Zobernig is concerned with the relationship between an object and its setting. The terms DRAMA and DISPLAY linked in the typography already symbolise the communicative interactions that take place between the work and its context.
Along with his graphic designs, Heimo Zobernig also examines the possibilities of representing artistic ideas with the aid of a steel object that is on show for the first time at the Kiesler Foundation Vienna. Prevailing art production conditions are also the subject of a video from 1999, a film focusing on the “Santa Maria della Scala” culture centre in Siena and on all those involved with it.
Institutional production mechanisms are the starting point of a pavilion built in 1998. This spatial installation of wooden battens and jute forges direct links to exhibitions staged in the past such as the Armory Show in New York in 1913. With this work, Heimo Zobernig ties modernist utopias in with Stanley Kubrick’s enactment of a “Space Odyssey” from 1968.
In a critical retracing of modernist expectations, however, Heimo Zobernig seals the previously open architecture, thus revealing it to be a mere construct of reality, a utopia – yet to be realised!
The exhibition HEIMO ZOBERNIG_DRAMADISPLAY is accompanied by a catalogue (German/English) with numerous illustrations and texts, the statement of the panel of judges of the 2010 Kiesler Prize, a preface by Dieter Bogner, and texts by Moritz Küng and Monika Pessler.
With the assistance of: Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Art and Culture
The Austrian Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts 2010 will be awarded to the artist Heimo Zobernig by Claudia Schmied, Austrian Federal Minister for Education, Art and Culture
The AWARD CEREMONY takes place at the audience hall of the Federal Ministry in Vienna Minoritenplatz 5, 1010 Vienna on October 18, 2010 at 5 p.m.
For the first time, the international panel of judges is awarding the Austrian Frederick Kiesler Prize to an Austrian artist. Heimo Zobernig follows Frank O. Ghery, Judith Barry, Cedric Prize, Asymptote, Olafur Eliasson and Toyo Ito. The heterogeneity of the seven prize-winners reflects the complexity that revolves around a central conceptual interest and that is characteristic of Kiesler's activities.
The jury of the Kiesler Prize 2010 – Tony Fretton (GB), Francesca von Habsburg (A), Moritz Küng (CH), Frédéric Migayrou (F) and Nasrine Seraji (IR) – acknowledges "the artist's unparalleled oeuvre and development [and] above all Heimo Zobernig's artistic agility in subtly undermining established ways of seeing things and uncovering unexpected aspects." (From: jury statement 2010).
The Austrian Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts was endowed in 1997 at the express wish of Frederick Kiesler's second wife Lillian, alternately by the Republic of Austria and the city of Vienna every two years, and is organised by the Kiesler Foundation Vienna.
This prize with high prize money of 55,000 euros, is presented "for outstanding achievements in the field of architecture and the arts that conform to Frederick Kiesler's experimental, innovative conceptions and his theory of 'correlated arts."
The prize-winner's works will be shown at the Kiesler Foundation Vienna to mark this occasion focus on the history and development of the environment and of the exhibition display. Heimo Zobernig's model space interventions are both critical examinations and impressive proof of the interplay of different fields of art. In this sense, his work also represents an exciting, contemporary analogue to the all-embracing interventions of the architect-artist Frederick Kiesler (1890-1965).
OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION "Heimo Zobernig_DRAMADISPLAY" on October 18, 2010 at 7 p.m. at the Kiesler Foundation Vienna, Mariahilferstrasse 1b/1, 1060 Vienna
Supported by bm:ukk – Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Culture
October 18, 2010
AWARD CEREMONY at 5 p.m.:
Audience hall of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Culture in Vienna,
Minoritenplatz 5, 1010 Vienna
Office & Press:
Sabina Prudic-Hartl T: +43 1 5130775 F: +43 1 5130775-5 sabina.prudic-hartl@kiesler.org - press@kiesler.org
Opening of the exhibition "DRAMADISPLAY" at 7 p.m.:
Kiesler Foundation Vienna
Mariahilferstrasse 1b/1, 1060 Vienna
Hours: Monday-Friday: 10 am-5 pm (and by appointment).
Closed on Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays.