Constanze Schweiger
dal 2/5/2003 al 1/6/2003
Segnalato da
2/5/2003
Constanze Schweiger
Priska C. Juschka Fine Art - Old location, New York
For Constanze Schweiger, portraiture is a complex social algorithm of which her photographs, paintings and video comprise merely one element. Her conceptual process provides an ingenious structure to her interactions with others: her friends, associates, fellow artists, and lovers.
Friends
NEW WORKS COMBINING PAINTING,
PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEO
Opening: Saturday May 3, 2003, 7-10pm
For Constanze Schweiger, portraiture is a complex
social algorithm of which her photographs, paintings
and video comprise merely one element. Her
conceptual process provides an ingenious structure
to her interactions with others: her friends,
associates, fellow artists, and lovers. Rather than
resorting to the diaristic conventions of snapshot
photography, however, Schweiger relies on a strict
methodology that repudiates haphazardness. The
success of this deliberateness depends on several
tensions. First, the tension between painting, which
her photographs reference in pose and scale, and
photography, which her paintings mimic in flatness
and precision. Second, the tension between
idiosyncratic subject and machine-smooth production.
Third, the tension between art and marketing, life
and fantasy, fact and fashion.
It is in this last example that Schweiger's work
finds its deepest resonance. Abiding by the
conventions that fashion photography uses to
construct desire, her videos and photographs radiate
a similar strategic confidence. It should come as no
surprise, then, that to produce them she has
employed fashion photography's essential tools:
medium format camera, set design, styling. Her
sitters' poses even echo the seductive hauteur of
the industry's top models.
Crucially, though, Schweiger's sitters are not
models. The frankness with which they regard the
camera is not a professional affectation but rather
a badge of their relationship to the photographer.
And the comic juxtaposition of their irregular faces
and blankly seductive expressions creates a
disruption: a witty obstacle in fashion's machinery
of desire.
Schweiger began as a painter, and her new paintings
remain vital to her photography. Named after her
friends, like the photos, these brightly patterned
canvases impudently suggest that an individual's
stylistic palette says as much about them as their
facial features. Hung beside the photo portraits in
diptychs or triptychs, they employ a restricted
selection of hues designed for maximum coordination.
They also quote from the photos, echoing the
sitters' outfits and the studio stage set so that,
side by side, the paintings and the photos each
validate the fictive reality - and the actual
reality - upon which they are based.
Constanze Schweiger studied in Vienna and
Maastricht. In 2001 she was selected for the
International Studio Program at New York's PS1,
where she also participated in the 2002 exhibition
Listening to New Voices. She currently lives and
works in Vienna.
Join Priska Juschka and the artist at the gallery
for an opening reception on Saturday, May 3rd from
7:00 to 10:00 PM.
Gallery hours: Thursday through Monday 12:00 to 6:00
PM or by appointment.
In the image: "Black, White, and Red", 2003, C-print, 48 x 60 inches
Priska Juschka Fine Art
97 North 9th Street, (Berry Street
& Wythe Ave.) Brooklyn, NY 11211
T: 718 782-4100 F: 718 782-4800