Austrian Pavilion
53rd International Art Exhibition
La Biennale di Venezia
June 7 – November 22, 2009
Elke Krystufek
Dorit Margreiter
Franziska & Lois Weinberger
Commissioners
VALIE EXPORT and Silvia Eiblmayr
Austria is presenting three artistic positions: Elke Krystufek, Dorit Margreiter and Franziska & Lois Weinberger. All have developed new works for the Austrian pavilion. Each of these artistic positions deals with a specific theme, and while their art differs greatly, they all share a structural approach, which critically questions the orders determining social aspects of our lives, our culture and politics.
Elke Krystufek condenses several themes in her painting installation TABOU TABOO (2009): Polynesia, the mythical place as it was conceived and conveyed in Modern European art, and the issue of a specifically “female gaze”. The title TABOU TABOO is a reference to the film “Tabu” by F. W. Murnau and further to Sigmund Freud’s “Totem und Tabu”. Krystufek replaces the word “Austria” on the outside of the pavilion with the word “Tabu”, and thus attacks the identity of the building.
Dorit Margreiter‘s work Pavilion (2009) is a film dealing with the place of its production and its mis-en-scène: the pavilion constructed by Austrian architect Josef Hoffmann, opened 1934 in the Giardini of Venice. Margreiter explores the pavilion as an utopian space of art, forming an architectural sculpture in itself. Pavilion is a grainy black-and-white film with a surreal quality. Its staged rendition at the actual site mirrors the pavilion in its space and in time, it is a projection of itself onto itself.
Laubreise (2008/09) by Franziska & Lois Weinberger is an outside piece, an accessible architectural sctructure located between pavilion and canal which houses an object inside. Laubreise as well as other works by F. & L. Weinberger deal with the relationship between “nature” and “culture”; their work is about the subtle „peripheries of perception” of an “invisible nature / spiritual nature” (L. Weinberger). Inside the pavilion an installation gives insight into Weinberger’s work from 1976 until today.
Catalog
VALIE EXPORT and Silvia Eiblmayr (eds.):
Elke Krystufek. Dorit Margreiter. Franziska & Lois Weinberger
Austrian Pavilion, 53. International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Contributions by Hildegund Amanshauser, Xabier Arakistain, Roel Arkesteijn, Barbara Clausen, interview by Dieter Buchhart, introduction by V. EXPORT and S. Eiblmayr, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne 2009.
La Biennale di Venezia
Austrian Pavilion
Giardini della Biennale di Venezia
Opening times: 10 am – 6 pm
Giardini closed on Mondays (except June 8 and November 16)
Vaporetto lines from train station and Piazzale Roma
No. 1 via Canale Grande until station Giardini (approx. 1 hour)
No. 41, 51 and 61 (only from Piazzale Roma) until station Biennale
On behalf of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture
Press conference: June 4, 2:30 pm
Office Austrian Pavilion
quartier21
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
AUSTRIA
Tel. / Fax. +43 1 522 51 69
pavillon [at] biennale09.at
Press contact Austrian Pavilion
Goldmann Public Relations, Zimmerstraße 11, D-10969 Berlin, Tel.: +49 30 259 357 12, austrianpavilion09 [at] goldmannpr.de
