Bøger udgivet af VFMK

The artist Gunda Gruber (Salzburg, AT, 1971) has been working for many years on the intersection between video, photography, graphic art, and architecture. Many of her series consist of layered elements and multimedia installations that challenge our perceptions of space and time and make for a vivid experience of discontinuities and uncertainties as well as the artist's creative process. Stages of reality overlap in Gruber's oeuvre as the space of film becomes an extension of the physical universe; structures borrowed from nature undergo abstraction, and social arrangements are subjected to scrutiny. Dialogue is central to her practice: the artist's engagement with her materials; the interactions between the forms and strata within a work; and, finally, the works' dialogue with the beholders.This book is published on occasion of the artist's first museum exhibition for the award of the 2022 Grand Prize for Visual Art of the State of Salzburg, and included three new essays on Gunda Gruber's artistic practice by Andrea Kopranovic, Didi Neidhart, and Tina Teufel.

In his series TERRA NOVA, the internationally active photographer Egbert Trogemann turns his attention to the Hambach Forest. This name stands for one of the oldest and most diverse forests in Europe as well as for the destruction of nature in favor of coal-mining and profit. In his artistic investigation, Trogemann presents the impact of the clearing of the forest as well as instances of the struggle against that destruction as an expression of power structures and simultaneously as precursors of a future world oscillating between utopia and dystopia. The pictures, taken between 2018 and 2021, show temporary buildings erected by environmentalists as well as a bizarre observation deck set up by the energy company and offering a view of this new world-the series takes its title from the same-named slogan of the company. Simultaneously, the poetical black-and-white photographs summon up associations with magical, primal moments and raise underlying questions.In view of the special role of the forest for German national identity, for example in Romanticism or in the Grimm's fairy tales, the question arises as to how this forest clearance should be interpreted in an era of far-reaching political, climatic and social uprooting and reconfiguring.The publication presents a selection of photographs in connection with an essay by Reinhard Spieler, art historian and director of the Sprengel Museums Hannover. He writes that the photographer proceeds "like an archaeologist who derives from the scanty traces of the past points of reference for the reconstruction of the ways of life characteristic of past cultures."

Keith Sonnier-this name is primarily associated with the light works of the artist, who was born in Louisiana in 1941, in the Deep South of the USA. Since the 1960s, Sonnier has continuously developed works with various light sources, which has decisively shaped the reception of his art to this day. Equally essential, however, is the unbroken and open-minded interest in a wide variety of materials and media. Sonnier has also been engaged in diverse cultures throughout his life, has traveled and created works of art using local handicrafts.The exhibition, comprising around forty works from five decades, and the accompanying publication honor the work of the artist-who died in July 2020-in its diversity and the individual attitude that emerges in it. The English "Lightsome", which can mean 'bright' as well as 'carefree, cheerful', refers not only to Sonnier's art, but also to his person.

300 Zeichnungen / Cartoons stellen Fragen wie "Sind Bäume abends müde?" oder "Isst man im Leben einen ganzen Supermarkt?".Barthaare von Plato, Kant, Nietzsche und Mozart werden gezeigt, ebenso Ameisen im Stress oder der Unterschied zwischen jungem und altem Apfel.Der Zeichner, Christian Heiss, Architekt und Eigentümer des gleichnamigen Architekturbüros Atelier Heiss Architekten, teilt Beobachtungen und stellt solche zentralen Fragen - sind doch fast alle Dinge des Lebens mit der Architektur verbunden.Die Texte, in Englisch und Deutsch verfasst, stammen von ihm, ein Vorwort hat Wojtech Czaja beigetragen.Apropos: Gibt es dicke Elefanten?

The monograph of the artist Eduard Tauss presents the series "Farbkörper" and "Offene Formen", which were created in recent years in an organic and material-gestural formulation. "The paint has freed itself from the pictorial carrier and, by means of its own malleable substance, becomes an expression of itself and serves as the subject of its contemplation in the space." Eduard Tauss' series of works arise in dialogue with or investigation of the material of synthetic resin and are situated in the art-historical context of the "extension of painting." Angela Stief offers a precise and comprehensive examination of his artistic production, while Florian Steininger focuses on Tauss' paintings of "Offene Formen". The essay "Embodying Colour" casts light on the historical ramifications of the term "autonomy of colour," and Manisha Jothady addresses the dissolution of the categorization of artistic genres. Paint which unfolds its organic-sculptural potential and manifests itself as a gesture of material or color.

Since 1968, Bernhard Leitner has been creating sound spaces, meaning he considers sound to be an architectural, sculptural material. His first work in this regard was a model of Soundcube, a walkable cube with a grid of 384 loudspeakers lining its six inner walls. Moving sound through individually controlled loudspeakers distributed over an area creates spaces that are entirely auditory in nature. Initial empirical studies conducted by the artist were followed by approximately 150 sound space sculptures created between the mid-1970s and the present, each a unique calibration of the relationship between the bodily perception and sound spaces as they emerge in physical space and in time. Every one of Leitner`s sculptures can be experienced as an interior (visitors can walk, sit, lie down in them), and each reveals new psycho-physiological dimensions of experience. This is the first volume to comprise all of the artist`s sound space investigations, sound space sculptures, and sound space installations.

"The Double You Series" is based on the eponymous body of works that Günther Selichar created in 2020-2022. Instead of text, the artist's book contains pictures of words: color images of four different screens with varying pixel shaped and scans from a variety of printed publications featuring diverse fonts. They spell the questions "Who?", "What?", "Where?", "When?" and "Why?", which guide journalist's investigations and structure their output. With his text images, the media artist and theorist draws a line from early printed mass-media reproductions to texts on screens. The book prompts us to reflect on facts, which have lately often been supplanted by narratives.

Bettina Semmer wurde in den 1980er Jahren im Umfeld der "Neuen Wilden" bekannt. Vor dem Hintergrund einer noch fast ausschließlich von Männern dominierten Kunstszene entstanden Gemälde, und Filme oder fanden Interventionen statt. Schon damals zeigte sich die ihr Werk bis heute prägende Auseinandersetzung mit - nicht nur - weiblicher Körperlichkeit. Dabei thematisiert sie Erotik und Sexualität stets in Hinblick auf das Psychologische und Politische. Auch befasst sie sich immer wieder mit traumatischen Erfahrungen und deren physischen Auswirkungen.Die erste umfassende Monografie zu Bettina Semmer legt den Schwerpunkt auf ihr bildnerisches und vor allem malerisches Schaffen. Ein ausführlicher aktueller Beitrag von Ludwig Seyfarth befasst sich mit den "Körperbildern" in ihrem Werk. Verschiedene, bis in die 1980er Jahre zurückreichende, teilweise erstmals, teilweise wiederveröffentlichte Textbeiträge (u.a. von Diedrich Diederichsen, Svenja Grosser, Ramona Heinlein, Phil King und Gislind Nabakowski) dokumentieren unterschiedliche Facetten in der Rezeption ihres vielschichtigen Werkes. Über 175 Abbildungen zeigen Werke aus fünf Jahrzehnten.

Im Grenzbereich zwischen Abstraktion und Gegenständlichkeit arbeitet Achaintre mit Materialien wie Wolle, Keramik und Wasserfarbe, die eine spontane, intuitive Bearbeitung erlauben. Konstante Elemente in ihren beseelt wirkenden Werken sind die Maskerade, das Dunkle, Geheimnisvolle und Unheimliche. Inhaltlich und formal setzt sich die Künstlerin mit mitteleuropäischen Karnevals- und Faschingsbräuchen auseinander. Einflüsse von Horror und Science-Fiction finden ebenso Eingang in ihr Schaffen wie die Auseinandersetzung mit der musealen Präsentation von ethnologischen Sammlungen. Achaintres Werke weisen kunsthistorische Bezüge zum deutschen Expressionismus, zum Primitivismus, zur Arts-and-Crafts-Bewegung und zum Fauvismus auf.Die Publikation begleitet eine raumspezifische Einzelausstellung der deutsch-französischen Künstlerin im Belvedere 21, und gibt Einblick in das vielfältiges Werk von Achaintre, die tradierte Techniken wie Tapisserie, Zeichnung und Keramik unkonventionell anwendet.

Renate Krammer conducts an empirical investigation into the possibilities inherent to the horizontal line and to the material of paper on the basis of the artistic process. She directs her attention to the various degrees of hardness in pencils, the characteristics of paper, the dimensions of the pictorial ground, and the various instances of overlapping lines, as well as to the parameters of space and time and the facets of perception. Over the course of a precisely structured series of successive processes, the focus of her exploration of the picture is on color, material, surface, densifications, and empty spaces.The catalogue contains more than 300 illustrations of exemplary works from the period between 2019 and 2022. Texts by Silvie Aigner, Günther Holler-Schuster and Benedikt Steinböck convey insights into the working technique and conceptual world of the artist.

Between Venice, Innsbruck and Florence, the Austrian painter Franz Jenull (1949-2017) developed - after his studies with Emilio Vedova at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice - in many layers of paint and overpainting, 'sharpenings' as he calls them, and in an interplay of spontaneity and control, a non-figurative painting that combines color and form to create a poetic density that is also musical in its rhythm, thus opening up completely new pictorial spaces.His artistic work, developed dialectically between figurative and abstract from 1980 onwards, is one of the passages. He dissolves the dichotomy between figuration and abstraction that has been carried on since the modernity and, according to Gilles Deleuze, leads it into the 'figural'. The anatomical figure remains the focus of his interest and stands at the beginning of each of his paintings.160 illustrations, divided into four groups of works, provide the first overview of and insight into the artist's solitary pictorial work. The three phases of his work become visible, from the informal paintings at the very beginning, to the 'color bar paintings' at the beginning of the 1990s, to the 'all over painting' of his late work.

"How can an Austrian art museum that has stated its support of a diverse and inclusive society take a critical and appropriate view of phenomena like racism and xenophobia? How can it look at issues such as physical and structural violence, cultural identity, and social exclusion, and also promote the decolonization of thinking? Key points of reference are self-criticism and the deconstruction of the white gaze onto the world, which has always been wrong and one-sided, but whose validity has only been challenged in recent decades." (From the introduction by Thorsten Sadowsky)The publication documents and continues the discourse initiated in 2021 with the two-part exhibition This World Is White No Longer by the Generali Foundation at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg. The focus is on artistic positions that deal decidedly with questions of racism and xenophobia and examine the "change of perspective" as a method for questioning the supremacy of one's own worldview.Works by the artists Karo Akpokiere, Lothar Baumgarten, Danica Daki, Forensic Architecture, Samuel Fosso, Charlotte Haslund-Christensen, Alfredo Jaar, Voluspa Jarpa, Belinda Kazeem-Kaminski, Adrian Piper, Lisl Ponger, and Kara Walker are discussed. The publication also presents the new works developed in several months of intensive work by the Photography and New Media Class of the University Mozarteum Salzburg for a project exhibition at the Generali Foundation Study Center.

The author of the book lovingly calls it a naïve attempt to make the art world a little bit happier. After living and working in the art world for the past fifteen years, Christoph Noe brought pen to paper to gather some thoughts on how to navigate in the culture industry. "It first developed foremost as a guide for myself as I continuously challenge the mission that I am on in the art world, asking myself why I am still doing what I am doing. Or sometimes, more dramatically, "If art is used in therapy, why do we almost need therapy when working in the art industry?" With a strong believe in the power of art and cultural creation and over multiple conversations and with the encouragement of my art- world crew, I came to the conclusion that these guidelines can function as a possible motivator, as a collection of thoughts or critical questions not only for myself but also for other people and collaborators working in the scene."Christoph NoeSomewhere in the art world, September 2022

LOVING OTHERS - Models of collaboration is appearing on the occasion of the same-named exhibition at the Künstlerhaus Wien. The exhibition-curated by Christian Helbock und Dietmar Schwärzler-aims to help make artist groups and their different collaborative models and forms of social bonding and solidarity be productive, as well as to tell stories of constructive failure. The exhibition sees itself as an experimental field for observing and comparing collectives, artist groups, and even temporary collaborations in a differentiated and engaging way.The publication, which is not intended as an exhibition catalogue, accompanies the show. It collects and presents discursive texts on the topic, additional material, further contributions by artists, and accompanying interviews. The publication is an independent, discursive collection of material and provides in-depth information on various forms of collaboration, individual groups or artistic practices for an interested audience.

Ever since the early 1970s, Werner von Mutzenbecher has numbered among the most important protagonists of the cultural scene in Basel: not only as an artist whose works were presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions and are included in many Swiss collections, but also both as a teacher for many years at the Schule für Gestaltung Basel and through his interim directorship of the Kunsthalle Basel during the 1970s. For many decades, his painterly cosmos has been the world around him, with his oeuvre consisting of its abstraction and interpretation in a realization that can variously be figurative, abstract, or also concrete. The artistic expression can also flow into language, literature, video, Super8 or 16mm film. It is here that is to be found the key to the complexity of his oeuvre and hence to the multiplicity of media which Mutzenbecher knows how to activate.The present monograph was created on the occasion of his solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus Baselland and offers for the first time a comprehensive overview of his extensive artistic production, discussed by colleagues and authors from different areas such as film, video, literature, art history, etc. An illustrious polyphony to a life in pictures.

With its 440 photographs, this book, which is unique in its kind, highlights important milestones in the history of music that have also been formative for us. VOICES offers insights into the life stories of artists. Outstanding performers tell us about experiences with their colleagues, renowned personalities in the music and theater scene. And they also give us glimpses into their private realms: making music at home with their families, social backgrounds, and such sensitive themes as setbacks, fears, or long-yearned-for appreciation, and how they found the key to their voices. This impressive volume represents history from 1945 to the present, passed down by way of personal accounts.The texts are based on conversations conducted by Christine Cerletti and Thomas Voigt during the pandemic in 2021/22, or they were written by the artists themselves. Choosing diverse approaches, they outline how the stage can become an emotional space. Their stories are musical history narrated from a personal perspective. The desire to share things is incredibly strong. What remains after the caesura established by the pandemic: (musical) theater is closeness.

"Monika Sosnowska. Fatigue" is published on the occasion of the acclaimed Polish artist's exhibition at Kunstraum Dornbirn, which took place in Summer/Fall 2022. It contains a foreword by director Thomas Häusle and a text by curator and art critic Stach Szablowski. Sosnowska's artistic view of the built environment is closely linked to contemporary historical developments. Buildings are understood as places of experience, places of memory, with all the historical, political, psychological and anthropological markings that have been inflicted on the architecture over time. The interplay the works that have been displayed in Dornbirn with the rough, untreated architecture of the former assembly hall results in a psychosocial image of our history and present.

If the pictures that the artist created are in his studio, the artist can not only destroy them; he can also deny having created them- as he harms no one through this. But as soon as these pictures are circulated-when they are exchanged, sold, exhibited, reproduced, etc.-this puts an immediate end to the untruthful denial of the authorship: an artist who created a work may not untruthfully say of this work that he did not create it. And this is the very focus of the matter that provided the impetus for this book.

The monograph NI MÁS NI MENOS provides the first extensive overview of the exceptional painter Matías Sánchez (living and working in Sevilla, Spain). The publication includes hundreds of illustrations of his paintings and views of his studio. Through a text by Cy Schnabel, an interview of the artist with Jennifer Tang and an essay by galleries Michael Zink, Matías Sánchez¿s unique work gets contextualized.Through his own exploration, the self taught artist developed a signature style of vivid painterly surfaces as a backdrop against spirited characters and objects. He pays homage to Post-Impressionist artists such as Paul Gauguin, and cites Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning as inspiration. At times smoothly rendered, at times crudely abstract, the artist uses recurring images including sausages, bones, rats and people with menacing expressions, to form grotesque dreamscapes, exploding with energy. The results are striking, intense images and colors.Matías Sánchez's work can be found in the public and private collections of the CAC Malaga; S. Goodman Collection, New York; Art Museum of the University of Southern California; Benetton Art Spain Collection; Luc Caurichon Collection, Paris; amongst others.

The catalog Floating was published in accompaniment of the exhibition of the same name at Osthaus Museum Hagen. It provides an overview of the artist¿s recent works, which deal with constant change, becoming and passing. Since the beginning of 2018, Monika Kus-Picco has been working exclusively with medicines that serve as pigments. This involves using "expired" medical products and liquids instead of industrially produced paints and pigments, which are then applied to the canvas. This gestural, physical process gives the paintings a novel color palette and a startling inner tension. The paintings without beginning and end are reminiscent of the all over structures of Abstract Expressionism of the 1960s. The pharmaceutical material, which has deep associations, gives rise to completely new worlds of color. Monika Kus-Picco crosses the dividing line between natural science and art. The invisible modes of action of medicines are visualized and given a visible form reminiscent of cosmic processes. Medicine is not depicted, it depicts itself.