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6/10/2008

Rebecca Baron and Dorit Margreiter

MAK Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Wien

In the show entitled “POVERTY HOUSING. Americus, Georgia” American filmmaker Rebecca Baron and Austrian artist Dorit Margreiter address the subject of the reenactment and aestheticization of poverty and its media presentation as in the case of the “Global Village & Discovery Center” theme park in Americus, Georgia (USA), which features a one-to-one replica of an existing South-African slum. In their film installation developed for the MAK Gallery, the two artists explore issues such as the documentary value of film, the mechanisms of art production, the process of filmmaking, and the mediatized representation of reality that comes along with it.

The theme park is operated by a non-profit organization to raise money for the organization’s social activities through the graphic visualization of poverty. The work of the two artists raises questions about the relationship of subject and image, production and reproduction, as well as about the manipulative power of images in general. Margreiter and Baron rely on technological processes and forms of presentation derived from the fields of architecture and design as well as from the genres of film and documentary making. They use components of form and content to describe the media construction of reality.

The film installation “POVERTY HOUSING. Americus, Georgia” turns the MAK Gallery into a black box in which the medium of film is reflectively examined, further intensified by the conscious decision to make the film strip (10 min, 35 mm) an exhibit itself. Beyond that, the artists resist the usual categorizations of video or media art.

The collaboration of Rebecca Baron and Dorit Margreiter at the MAK Gallery is based on Margreiter’s own working concept and self-image as an artist, which involves researchers, cultural theorists and creative professionals across disciplines. She has previously worked together with Kaucyila Brooke, Mathias Poledna, Florian Pumhösl, Heimo Zobernig, and Anette Baldauf, a.o.

Dorit Margreiter, born 1967 in Vienna, graduated from the Vienna University of Applied Arts, and 2001 received the MAK Schindler scholarship of the MAK Artists and Architects-in-Residence Program, which, since 1995, has been annually awarded to free-lance artists and undergraduate and graduate students of architecture who realize their winning projects at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles. The artist lives in Los Angeles and in Vienna. Aside from her art work, she teaches video and video installation at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Margreiter’s videos, photographs, and installations explore as a fundamental motif the construction of social spaces by popular visual media. Her work received several awards, including the renowned Msgr. Otto Mauer Prize. Dorit Margreiter was invited, together with artists Elke Krystufek and Lois and Franziska Weinberger, to create the Austrian contribution to the upcoming 2009 Venice Biennale of Art.

Rebecca Baron is a Los-Angeles-based filmmaker whose work has screened widely in international festivals, including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the New York Film Festival, the Viennale, the Whitney Museum of Art, and the documenta 12 film program. Most recently, her film “How Little We Know of Our Neighbours” was awarded the Jury's Choice Award at the 2006 Black Maria Film/Video Festival in New Jersey.

“REBECCA BARON, DORIT MARGREITER. POVERTY HOUSING. Americus, Georgia” is, after “ANDREAS FOGARASI. 2008”, another MAK Gallery exhibition featuring artistic positions located in the interface zone between visual art and architecture and working with methods of shifting perception and perspectives.

Notice: on Tuesday, 9 December 2008, a special film screening curated by Dorit Margreiter und Rebecca Baron will be held at the MAK Lecture Hall, followed by the first presentation of the publication “REBECCA BARON, DORIT MARGREITER. POVERTY HOUSING. Americus, Georgia”.

The exhibition is shown as part of the program for the Vienna “Month of Photography”.

MAK Press Office
Teresa-Maria Raninger phone (+43 1) 711 36 exts. 233, 212, 229 Fax (+43 1) 711 36 227 E-Mail presse@MAK.at

Opening Tuesday, 7 October 2008, 8:00 p.m.

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