GALLERY MAGAZINE | AUTUMN - WINTER 2023

HANNAH PERRY, Gas Lighting RED, 2015, Autobody enamel on aluminium, 100 x 81 cm © Courtesy of the Artist

MAXIMILIAN PRÜFER New Publication: Inwelt

RETROSPECT: XIE LEI NACHLEBEN

21 June – 29 July 2023

We can confidently approach the exhibition titled „NACHLEBEN“ as a manifestation of Xie Lei‘s artistic growth and diverse intellectual curiosity, this time referencing the concept of reframing introduced by Aby Warburg in his profound work. Warburg’s „Nachleben“ bears witness to the secret life of visual perception in art, where images are transcending their original context, evolving through time, cultures, and artistic interpretations. Xie breathes life into his works as he navigates along the shores of this idea on his own terms, as we can observe in Vienna at Galerie Kandlhofer.

Warburg developed the concept of „Nachleben“ to explore how images, motifs, and themes from the past continue to resonate and influence artistic production in the present. For Xie Lei, the concept of „Nachleben“ endows him with a distant mirror image when dealing with the interplay between literature, Eastern and Western artistic traditions, contemporary art practices, and more. By delving into the afterlife of cultural elements such as symbols, narratives, and aesthetic principles, Xie explores how previous art forms and literary sources have been reinterpreted, transformed, or revived in contemporary art. This research provides him with the inventiveness to create new works that reflect a synthesis of traditional and contemporary influences. Furthermore, the concept of „Nachleben“ assists Xie in understanding the broader cultural and intellectual context in which he works, developing a deeper and multi-layered comprehension, especially when working in the realm of visual arts.

19 October - 17 November

Throughout the exhibition „Nachleben,“ Xie Lei draws inspiration from various sources, including ancient Chinese narratives and iconic European paintings, integrating them with his own personal experiences and reflections. In doing so, he raises questions about the preservation of cultural heritage in the face of globalization, the tension between tradition and modernity, and the possibilities of cultural exchange and mutual influence. By merging cultural issues and Western art historical references, Xie invites viewers to contemplate the complex dynamics between cultures and the evolving nature of contemporary art, which sometimes evolves in unexpected directions.

Intersections between Eastern and Western art have existed for centuries and have had a significant impact on the development of art in both worlds. Notable periods and locations of such intersections include the ancient Silk Road, Islamic Art during the Medieval Period, the Renaissance in Europe, Japonisme in the 19th century, and, of course, modern and contemporary art. As mentioned earlier, Xie Lei derives inspiration from incorporating elements from both Eastern and Western cultural heritages. However, he goes beyond mere incorporation and explores the progressive and crucial concept of artistic hybridity. By interconnecting these influences, he creates a contemporary visual language that reflects the complexity and diversity of contemporary society.

Xie Lei, Cherish I, 2023, Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 cm, 3/4 x 9 1/2 in, © Manuel Carreon Lopez

When approaching the works presented in this exhibition, we must not forget that we are also dealing with a phenomenological universe. By immersing ourselves in this ecosystem of works by Xie, we can observe how they illuminate each other, just as light seems to emanate from each individual work. This is clearly how we come to understand some of the things that truly interest Xie. Let‘s take a closer look at a couple of paintings. First, there is „ADORATION,“ an image depicting an apparent shamanistic scene. A lush forest lies behind a designated bonfire location, which holds great significance and is considered a powerful tool of transformation, catharsis, and a gateway to a non-material world. It represents a journey into altered states of consciousness, where an otherworldly light glows intensively on the shaman’s hand. He conveys his inner energy while connecting with the forces of nature. Another person floats already, thanks to the shaman’s spirituality and wisdom, free from the conventional laws of physics, traveling from one realm to the next. In this painting, we contemplate traditional color combinations juxtaposed with others that are unconventional. The varying proportions of green, yellow, and orange are layered to create textures and depth. Xie may believe that these colors hold special significance in representing the interplay between nature, spirituality, and human emotions. He also experiments with blending techniques and juxtaposing textures to create interesting interactions of color and shape. The visual experience is both captivating and thought-provoking, evoking the radically innovative musical composition „The Rite of Spring“ by the Russian genius Igor Stravinsky. The dynamic and energetic visual composition of the painting captures the raw energy and primal rhythms of Stravinsky‘s groundbreaking music.

Now, let‘s turn our attention to „PROTECTION.“ The central focus of this almost monochromatic green group portrait painting is a male figure who holds two children, one on each side. The faces of all three figures are intentionally blurred, creating a sense of ubiquity and anonymity. By doing so, the artist allows viewers to project their own explanations and emotions onto the painting. The use of green color brings to mind connections to nature and growth, symbolizing continuation, harmony, and relief. The overall emotional quality evokes a feeling of calmness. Xie employs a contrast of fine and strong brushstrokes, generating a powerful interplay of textures and visual differences that add depth and complexity to the painting. We can also interpret the varying brushstrokes and subtle chromatic differences as suggesting different forms of protection, some delicate and others strong. Additionally, we can interpret the painting as representing the universal instinct of protecting future generations. All of these interpretations invite us to explore the numerous layers of meaning that Xie‘s works suggest. They also serve as a reminder of the cyclical nature of art and its capacity to transcend time and space.

Xie Lei‘s paintings may present considerable difficulties when it comes to interpretation. Attempting to decipher their hidden meaning can be frustrating. Nevertheless, we should remember that a visual poet like Xie Lei primarily uses ambiguity to convey meaning. If asked, he would likely answer that his images do not symbolize anything specific. By expressing himself in this manner he intends for us to see and understand that an image is truly symbolic when it implies something beyond its immediate meaning. It carries a broader unconscious intention that allows our minds to explore ideas beyond reason. However, it is important to note that the images and ideas in his paintings certainly evoke reverberations of all the distinct aspects mentioned above in this text. This does not mean his artistic vision is restricted to these appearances alone. It occupies a larger space than what is evident. Xie Lei does not limit himself to direct correlations when it comes to his art.

Text by Christian Dominguez

Xie Lei, Cherish II, 2023, Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm, 15 3/4 x 11 3/4 in, © Courtesy of the artist

Xie Lei, Installation View, Nachleben, 2023, © Manuel Carreon Lopez

MAXIMILIAN PRÜFER New Publication

| Inwelt

Inwelt by Maximilian Prüfer (b. 1986) is the continuation of the 2016 publication Brut and encompasses the various series of works by the artist in the intervening period. Prüfer’s work employs a number of procedures of his own invention that reveal the traces left by insects and other natural phenomena. He analyzes animal behavior in order to then compare it to human behavior. For instance, in his series Forming Thoughts, which he began in 2020, the artist explores the pathways and tracks made by ants. In doing so, he attempts to establish a direct link to neurological structures and to draw conclusions regarding the behavior of creatures that live as collectives, as well as humankind’s understanding of nature.

Maximilian Prüfer, Inwelt

ISBN 978-3-7356-0916-8

Kerber Verlag, 25 × 29 cm, 180 pages, Hardcover, Languages: English

Editor: Maximilian Prüfer

Text by: Lucia Longhi, V.E. Mandrij, Maximilian Prüfer, Cornelia Schirmer, Nora Sophie Schröder, Andrea Steves

Design by: Maximilian Prüfer

MAXIMILIAN PRÜFER Installation View, First Alphabet, Galerie Kandlhofer, 2023, @ Courtesy of the artist

MAXIMILIAN PRÜFER

New Publication | Fruits of Labour

Building on his interest in evolution, philosophy, and society, in his project A Gift From Him Maximilian Prüfer (b. 1986) explores the destruction of natural habitats to make way for agriculture in China. To this end, Prüfer took two trips to the Szechuan Province, where the fruit trees need to be pollinated by hand due to insect deaths caused by the increased use of pesticides. These developments are attributable to Mao’s campaign to “Destroy the Four Olds,” which entailed the killing of around two billion sparrows in order to restore the natural equilibrium. Prüfer documented the entire manual pollination process in photos, collected items, and films which make for an ambivalent exploration of the cultural evolution of humankind.

Maximilian Prüfer, Fruits of Labour

ISBN 978-3-7356-0915-1

Kerber Verlag, 25 × 29 cm, 120 pages, Softcover, Languages: German, English

Editor: Bettina Zorn, Weltmuseum Wien

Text by: Holly Roussell, Sebastian Seibold, Bettina Zorn

Design by: Maximilian Prüfer and Clemens Wihlidal, Vienna

MAXIMILIAN PRÜFER Installation View, Fruits of Labour, Weltmuseum Wien 2023-2024, © KHM-Museumsverband

MAXIMILIAN PRÜFER

Maximilian Prüfer‘s solo exhibition Fruits of Labour is now on view at Weltmuseum Wien until 9 July 2024.

MAXIMILIAN PRÜFER, Installation View, Fruits of Labour, Weltmuseum Wien 2023-2024, © KHM-Museumsverband

HERMANN NITSCH AT KONZERTHAUS WIEN

Nitsch und seine Musik

Concert: 31 October 2023 | 6.45 pm

Musikverein Wien

Hermann Nitsch. Homage

11 October 2023 - 29 Febuary 2024

Musée de l‘Orangerie, Paris

Photography by Manuel Carreon Lopez

CURATED BY GLOSSARY

Curated by Sacha Craddock

Galerie Kandlhofer invited Sacha Craddock to curate an exhibition for this year’s edition of Curated By. The exhibition will show works by Tereza Červeňová, Harminder Judge, Andreas Reiter Raabe and Jessica Warboys.

It is impossible to be neutral in politics and yet neutrality, the theme of this years Curated by, could be seen as a welcome space in which to embrace the non-functional nature of art. It is hoped that such a metaphorically extended space and time dilutes any simplistic idea of understanding, that the narrative of artistic intention does not trump experience to determine how things really are or will be. A show consisting of work by four artists, will inevitably, carry a three-dimensional sense of discovery and surprise about it. No description can encapsulate the complicated, perhaps contradictory, power of experience. While neutrality can never, in its abstraction, provide real vision or result, the range of physical language used by the four selected artists is able to provide a sweep of desire and aesthetics, a true range of physical endeavour and reference, that will unwittingly absorb the neutral in some other way. Much of work by the selected artists arrives out of a metaphorical sideways shift, out of a use of material that reflects the beginning of possibility and the fact that at some sort of level we, as audience and artist alike, begin in the same place.

Andreas Reiter Raabe makes painting and sculpture that arrives out off a sort of hands-off process. With the machinery of production existing somewhere between the artist and the result, Reiter Raabe allows, somehow apparently with little emotion, the paint to fall on the canvas in smears, blops and plops. The sifting process which has already taken the mark away from the hand uses a touch that in its own terms neither succeeds nor fails, but that is, to a certain extent, determined by a language that surrounds the success and failure of abstract painting. It is also one that can be judged by different criteria. Is this a ‘good one’, both artist and expectant observer enquire, is it lovely, what does that mean? Reiter Raabe’s process mimics the early days of a printing press; the production of and laying out of written and visual language that is neither basic nor primary, but in this case with a palette that looks if it has already been mixed in another life. The machinery of production in turn mimics a cottage industry of constructed rationale where paint, tired rather than fresh, arrives in a roundabout way and ends up, propped, hung on the wall, a slice of horizontal brought flat. When also making a flat surface stand up on its own, Reiter Raabe’s works both mimics and becomes a sculpture.

Jessica Warboys’ paintings are a result of the harnessing of the independent force of nature, in that they are made mainly by placing canvas in the sea. Direction, hands free, is never just one way, as the visual result and surrounding narrative dissolves a rhythm of autonomous and independent logic. The result, anything but pictorial or determined, manages to convey a sense of diffuse powerlessness. It is a matter of throwing yourself in, metaphorically, as the vison appears, against a sub plot of expectation about what a painting should actually do. A production of non-centralised, all-over activity; the movement of water, like that harnessed for electricity, brings about a mass of image shown roughly across a structure.

Her films follow a similar sense. Warboys’ brings image in and out of focus and associative relief using text, scratch, picture of place and, a broken, but directed, mixture of sharp and blunt, diffuse, and concentrated association and disassociation. The film makes an unusual sweep or swoop between the physical and representational, and back again. The relation between real time and moving image is fascinating. The water moves over the surface of the sea paintings, and the imagery in the moving image also seems to have a nature of its own. Warboys’ edits with precision, yet the logic of the beat and rationale of captured place, symbolic moment, associative significance allows a sweep of interference across the work. The implication is of an artist affected by, rather than affecting, the result. Such collaging is not new, of course, but the relation to time, the fact that there is no narrative, as such, creates a quickening in shift, from general to specific, totality to particularity, to extend territory and a sense of possibility. The fact the artist makes something last over time extends a form of conscious unconsciousness.

JOHN ROBINSON StNickface, 2022, Oil on paper on canvas 41 x 60 cm, 16 1/8 x 23 5/8 in, Courtesy of the artist

HARMINDER JUDGE

Untitled (torso flattened and mud and stone), 2023, Plaster, polymer, pigment, scrim, oil, 380 x 500 cm © Courtesy of the Artist, Photo by Ollie Hammick

HARMINDER JUDGE, Untitled (soil cursed and lit and burst), 2022, Plaster, polymer, pigment, scrim, oil, wax, © Courtesy of the artist

HARMINDER JUDGE

Untitled (soil cursed and lit and burst), 2022, Plaster, polymer, pigment, scrim, oil, 203 x 198 cm © Courtesy of the Artist, Photo by Ollie Hammick

Made in a sort of ‘hands free’ manner the somewhat belligerent iconographic paintings by Harminder Judge, are as much a matter of relief as paint. As with the work of Reiter Raabe and Warboys, with imagery, in Judge’s case a splattering, or mass, of pigment suspended within its own physical volume, a swarm of flies caught in aspic, in an apparently indirect manner. The subject and direction is petrified within a build-up of material and the work functions in a back to front manner, with the work reflecting gestural movement. The iconic, shift, rivulet of action, put in from behind or on top, arrives fixed and finite and front of stage, as it were, with hard surface, and diffuse action held still. The gesture is suspended, frozen in time, when turned from upside down and around to face us. So, like the director of an opera, the artist achieves total revelation only after the curtain has lifted at the dress rehearsal. Made up of many gestures and moments, after copious process and care, the instant breath or cross section of reaction is revealed with colour making up an image delivered all at once. Works by Judge allude to the gesture of expressionism but also to a statement that comes, perhaps, from elsewhere. Loose powdery material leaves a trace, like a script or language of painterly ambition. Like Reiter Raabe, who paints from above, neither artist is in a position to stand back, as it were, and choose what they have made. With trust in the process, something has landed.

JESSICA WARBOYS

Moon Wave, 2019, HD video, sound, 2,4 min (loop), © Courtesy of the artist

JESSICA WARBOYS

Moon Burn, Moon Wave, 2019, Photo Collage for press purpose only. © Courtesy of the artist

The action somehow in Tereza Červeňová’s photographs, is held still. They are about, or of, a decision to allow layers of actuality to be caught across the surface; a sort of dive into space brought up to flatness. So much is going on off the side, of course, elsewhere, and everywhere. Or perhaps nothing is happening anywhere, that can have visual, formal, even aesthetic significance till held, not so much still, but as an example of place, space, and insignificant continuity. While the artists in the show have a roundabout, back to front, approach to a subsequent result, Červeňová’s photographs arrive in differing size and scale as perhaps stripping observation, to be shared, understood and appreciated in part for the continuation of the Modernist dream about the observation of elements, cut out ,collaged into consciousness. The loveliness of the disturbed flat sheet, a wall, the reflection in a window; really anything that brings the smear, tear, crumple, layered levels of visual language together. Červeňová’s photographs take on a role that washes up and away an exact sense of direction and subject, in order to remain in the role they play. The photograph, in this case mimics the whoosh of the chemical that in real life washes across the surface of photographic paper, and so with production mimicking the subject, form and content meet in the middle to become not just a self-defining image but a page holder as it were, in the relationship between art and photograph.

TEREZA ČERVEŇOVÁ

Sheets (to lie with) London, United Kingdom, 2022, Photography © Courtesy of the artist

TEREZA ČERVEŇOVÁ

Stairs (between the Sun and the Moon), Teotihuacan, Mexico, 2022, Photography © Courtesy of the artist

Text by curator Sacha Craddock

ANDREAS REITER RAABE o.T. , 2014/2023, Kunstharzlack, auf PVC, 190 x 100 x 50 cm, 74 3/4 x 39 3/8 x 19 3/4 in, © Courtesy of the artist

RODRIGO VALENZUELA & REZA ARAMESH DUO-EXHIBITION

19 October - 17 November

Galerie Kandlhofer is pleased to present an international duo show, bringing together new works by Iranian artist Reza Aramesh and Chilean artist Rodrigo Valenzuela.

RODRIGO VALENZUELA

Rodrigo Valenzuela constructs narratives, scenes, and stories which point to the tensions found between the individual and communities und utilizes autobiographical threads to inform larger universal fields of experience. Gestures of alienation and displacement are both the aesthetic and subject of much of his work. His work serves as an expressive and intimate point of contact between the broader realms of subjectivity and political contingency. Through Valenzuela’s videos and photographs, he makes images that feel at the same time familiar yet distant and engages the viewer in questions concerning the ways in which the formation and experience of each work is situated — how they exist in and out of place.

RODRIGO VALENZUELA

Garbatos #3, 2023, Screenprint and acrylic on collaged time cards on canvas, 152,4 x 243,8 cm, © Courtesy of the artist

RODRIGO VALENZUELA Weapons #15, 2021, Screenprint and acrylic on collaged time cards on canvas, 121.9 x 152.4 cm © Courtesy of the Artist

RODRIGO VALENZUELA & REZA ARAMESH DUO-EXHIBITION

19 October - 17 November

Iranian born British artist Reza Aramesh speak to our time of questioning beauty and its functions when our sensibilities and capacity towards beauty have come under assault. Aramesh looks at well-known and iconic reportage images of suffering and displacement across humanity through recognisable narratives that are ingested through global media streams and its reduction of visual culture in to bite-size portions of reality.

Reportage images that survive the grinding mill of popularity are usually assigned iconic status but the reasoning for why that has become so is also often lost in the service of professionalism. The investment of ones time to build empathy towards a depicted subject, is often lost too.

After identifying his source material in reportage imagery Aramesh sets out to transform their appearance into sculptural volumes that are based on European art history and its hegemony of beauty in the service of power. The results are often othered and unsettling works that are as equally desirable as they are objectionable. In the vernacular: the artist is asking us to take our time to absorb the events that places humanity and humanism under duress. Aramesh aims to address the larger myopia that visual culture has had to endure in a time of attention economies.

Operating within a balancing act to illuminate the fine line between empathy and cruelty, Aramesh has developed his artistic practice based on the question of what beauty does, as supposed to what beauty is.

REZA ARAMESH

Reza Aramesh, *Iran, Lives and works in London. MFA Goldsmiths, London 1997 is in the collections of Tate, London, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, MOCAK, Krakow, MUNTREF, Buenos Aires and many international private collections and foundations. Aramesh is currently preparing a solo exhibition to take place in Venice in 2024.

HANNAH PERRY & RICHIE CULVER DUO-EXHIBITION

23 November 2023 - 13 January 2024

Galerie Kandlhofer is thrilled to present a duo exhibiton of the two English artists Hannah Perry and Richie Culver.

RICHIE CULVER

Richie Culver does not see himself as a painter. Born in Hull in the North of England into a workingclass family, Culver was not exposed to art growing up and left school with no qualifications to work in a factory making caravans. His practice encompasses diverse elements that range from painting, sculpture and photography to digital performance. Within this, Culver’s work is largely biographical wrestling with aspects of contemporary masculinity, the class system and the digital lens through which we live our lives.

He has recently graduated from the MA Painting program at The Royal College of Art, London and is nominated for the John Moores Painting Prize 2023.

RICHIE CULVER

Untitled 6, 2023, Oil and laquer on canvas, 180 x 200 x 4,5 cm, 70 3/4 x 78 3/4 x 1 3/4 in, © Manuel Carreon Lopez

HANNAH PERRY & RICHIE CULVER DUO-EXHIBITION

23 November 2023 - 13 January 2024

HANNAH PERRY

Hannah Perry (b.1984, Chester, England) lives and works in London. Perry received her BA in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College, University of London and her MA from The Royal Academy of Art, London.

Hannah is a British artist working mainly in installation, sculpture, print and video. Through continuously generating and manipulating materials (footage, sound clips, images and objects), Perry develops a sprawling network of references, carefully exploring personal memory in today’s hypertechnological society whilst bending back the systems of representation via hyperactive distribution. Her work is anchored in using industrial materials as a way of working through the intersection of industry and gender. The presented series is concerned with disseminating the ‘feminine’ lineage of fragillity and strenght, as well as the shifting nature of endurance from the cerebral to the corporeal. It further interrogates gendered notions of constraint and limitations and explores parallels between physical and mental endurance. In particular, Perry has been interested in envisaging the material encounters she creates in her work, as a potential sites of transference.

“Focus On“ runs concurrently with the gallery’s main exhibition program in the project room and focuses on bringing a diverse range of artistic aesthetics and voices to the gallery to form a broader cultural and aesthetic dialogue.

photography by Manuel Carreon Lopez

FOCUS ON

KAZUHITO TANAKA

8 September - 14 October

MELISSA STECKBAUER & ESTRID LUTZ

19 October – 17 November

ALLEN-GOLDER CARPENTER

23 November - 13 January

KAZUHITO TANAKA PICTURE(S)

8 September - 14 October

An abstract painting, a composition of torn chromogenic photograms exposed in the darkroom, and an acrylic box sealing their fate. There is no hierarchy to their plane, they influence each other while presenting their differences as a medium. A conversation is present that is devoid of these mediums’ historic tensions. Ripped and folded photograms are layered and emerging off the canvas. They mimic the paint strokes while their color and sculptural form are evidently more vivid than the paint.

Painting, who are you? Photography, who are you? Or, who am I, without imagery?

Kazuhito Tanaka

Kazuhito Tanaka, was born in 1973 in Saitama, Japan. After graduating Meiji University in 1996 and then working as a corporate employee, he moved to New York. Graduated from School of VISUAL ARTS (NY) in 2004. Questioning the relations in between photography and painting, he explores new abstract expressions using photographic medium. He also organizes exhibitions as a curator in parallel with his career as an artist. He is a director of artist-run- space soda founded by him in 2018 in Kyoto. Currently lives and works in Kyoto and Fukuoka, Japan. Recent solo exhibitions include Picture(s), KANA KAWANISHI GALLERY, Tokyo (2022), Picture(s), Paris London Hong Kong, Chicago (2022), Gravity and Light, soda, Kyoto (2020), Self-Dual, Gallery PARC, Kyoto (2019), Trans / Real -The potential of Intangible Art vol.7 Kazuhito Tanaka, gallery Alpha-M, Tokyo (2017), pLastic_fLowers, Maki Fine Arts, Tokyo (2015), etc. Recent group exhibitions include FGC July Exhibitions (with DOCUMANT), Foreland, Catskill (2022), Wind and Images, Sprout Curation, Tokyo (2021), TAMA VIVANT II, Tama Art University, Tokyo (2019), NEW BALANCE #3, XYZ collective, Tokyo (2015), hyper-materiality on photo, G/P gallery shinonome, Tokyo (2015), etc. Recent curations include Never the Same Ocean, soda + HAGIWARA PROJECTS, Tokyo (2021), S/F -Photography, or a Monolith after 200 years-, KAYOKOYUKI + soda, Tokyo (2019), Photographs by 7 Painters, soda, Kyoto (2018), etc. He was awarded TOKYO FRONTLINE PHOTO AWARD 2011.

KAZUHITO TANAKA

Picture(s) #19, 2022, Chromogenic print on canvas (with acrylic frame) 343 x 253 x 68 mm, Courtesy of the artist

MELISSA STECKBAUER & ESTRID LUTZ DUO-EXHIBITION

19 October – 17 November

Galerie Kandlhofer is pleased to present an international duo show, bringing together new works by Melissa Steckbauer and Estrid Lutz.

Melissa Steckbauer was born in Tucson, USA, in 1980. She lives and works in Berlin.

Melissa Steckbauer was a member of the collaborative artist network ƒƒ, and founding director of the exhibition space, The Wand, she lives and works in Berlin. After a comprehensive focus on painting – she has been developing a body of work on paper, exploring all of the facets and complexities of this medium. Since 2006 she is also working with photography.

Melissa Steckbauer‘s intricate shapes and compositions evoke emotions and human connections. Using paper as an „image-bearer,“ she explores vulnerability and the importance of sharing. Her art invites viewers to engage with life‘s complexities.

In my work I seek a pluralist framework for ecstasy and family that is all in. I want to use an iconographic language that more accurately (and respectfully) describes multiplicities of consciousness. What I make is as much about power in sex and culture as it is about shame and empathy as experienced by all of earth’s weirdos (myself included).

MELISSA STECKBAUER

Untitled, 2023, Acrylic on paper, 24 x 18 cm

© Courtesy of the artist

space debris catcher - 21 & - ghost infra - skins the black hole -, 2021, Aluminium honeycomb - pigments - epoxy resin, 175 x 150 x 3 cm, © Courtesy of the Artist

MELISSA STECKBAUER & ESTRID LUTZ DUO-EXHIBITION

19 October – 17 November

Trained at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles and currently residing in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, the intersection between technosciences, nature, and aesthetics has always been at the forefront of Lutz’s artistic practice. As an artist, Lutz is preoccupied with those poetic zones of contact where science or new technologies take their inspiration from organic processes or otherwise enter into a new relationship with the natural world. Her work engages in a speculative aesthetics that allows us to imagine a cosmos where such processes might run their course freely. A world, that is, where the distinction between the natural and the scientific has become irrelevant; a world in which the biomorphic entities we call humans are folded back into the giant pool of nature-technology.

To achieve this effect, Lutz works with materials that are developed for high-tech purposes and that take their inspiration from organic processes. Many of these materials, like kevlar, are thought to be outside the scope of the visual arts and are instead connected to warfare or survival under extreme conditions. By bringing them into the realm of the visual arts in an unexpected and original way, Lutz creates a technopoetic synthesis of organic and crafted materials that is both poetical and critical. It is critical, in the sense that it is a way for Lutz to reconceptualize creativity in a world in which technology and the organic have merged with one another. It is poetic, in the sense that Lutz’s reconceptualization works with distinct formal and textural techniques that speak to our visual imagination. For unique textural effects and to intensify this poetic trajectory, Lutz induces chemical reactions by injecting water or air in her works or by burning parts of the work.

Extrait from Bram Ieven text 2021.

ALLEN-GOLDER CARPENTER WATER MEMORY

23 November - 13 January

A project exploring the idea of memory in its various forms, intersected with the human relationship to water as conduit and vessel for those forms. In this project I photographed my older brother and grandfather, interviewing the latter about his life and our family history. The overarching ideas are inspired by the theory that water holds memory, and the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes which makes the intergenerational connection between black people through reference to bodies of water. With the usage of such reference to contextualize the greater role of water and memory as two inseparable spiritual materials.

ALLEN-GOLDER CARPENTER

Grandfather 1, Grandfather 2, Larry 1, Larry 2, Polaroids, 10,8 x 8,9 cm, Courtesy of the artist

Galerie

Kandlhofer

Brucknerstrasse 4, 1040 Vienna, Austria

info@kandlhofer.com

+43 1 503 1167

Cover

Xie Lei, Refold, 2023, Oil on canvas, 50 x 65 cm, 19 3/4 x 25 5/8 in © Manuel Carreon Lopez

Page 2

Hannah Perry, Gas Lighting RED, 2015, Autobody enamel on aluminium, 100 x 81 cm © Courtesy of the Artist

Page5

Xie Lei, Cherish I, 2023, Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 cm, 11 3/4 x 9 1/2 in © Manuel Carreon Lopez

Page 7

Xie Lei, Cherish II, 2023, Oil on canvas, 40 x 30 cm, 15 3/4 x 11 3/4 in © Manuel Carreon Lopez

Page 8 and 9

Installation View, Xie Lei, Nachleben, 2023, © Manuel Carreon Lopez

Pages 10 and 11

Installation View, Maximilian Prüfer, First Alphabet, 2023 © Courtesy of the Artist

Pages 12 and 13

Installation View, Maximilian Prüfer, Fruits of Labour, Weltmuseum Wien 2023-2024 © KHM-Museumsverband

Pages 14 and 15

Installation View, Maximilian Prüfer, Fruits of Labour, Weltmuseum Wien 2023-2024 © KHM-Museumsverband

Pages 16

Hermann Nitsch, Schüttbild, 2009, acrylic on canvas with shirt, 200 x 300 cm, 78 3/4 x 118 1/8 in, (EMIL-09) © Manuel Carreon Lopez

Page 17

Hermann Nitsch, Schüttbild, 2019, 81. painting action, Acrylic on jute, 200 x 300 cm, 78 3/4 x 118 1/8 in (15_19) © Manuel Carreon Lopez

Pages 18 and 19

Xie Lei, Abandon, 2023, Oil on canvas, 160 x 205 cm, 63 x 80 3/4 in © Manuel Carreon Lopez

Page 23

Harminder Judge, Untitled (torso flattened and mud and stone), 2023, plaster, polymer, pigment, scrim, oil, 380 x 500 cm © Courtesy of the Artist, Photo by Ollie Hammick

Page 24

Harminder Judge,Untitled (soil cursed and lit and burst), 2022, plaster, polymer, pigment, scrim, oil, 203 x 198 cm © Courtesy of the Artist, Photo by Ollie Hammick

Page 25

Jessica Warboys, Moon Wave, 2019, HD video, sound, 2.40 min (loop) © Courtesy of the Artist

Jessica Warboys, Moon Burn, Moon Wave, 2019, Photo Collage for press purposes only. © Courtesy of the Artist

Page 26

Tereza Červeňová, Sheets (to lie with) London, United Kingdom, 2022, Photography © Courtesy of the artist Stairs (between the Sun and the Moon), Teotihuacan, Mexico, 2022, Photography © Courtesy of the artist

Page 27

Andreas Reiter Raabe, o.T. , 2014/2023, Kunstharzlack, auf PVC, 190 x 100 x 50 cm, 74 3/4 x 39 3/8 x 19 3/4 in © Courtesy of the Artist

Page 29

Rodrigo Valenzuela, Garbatos #3, 2023, Screenprint and acrylic on collaged time cards on canvas, 152 x 243 cm © Courtesy of the Artist

Pages 30 and 31

Rodrigo Valenzuela, Weapons #15, 2021, Screenprint and acrylic on collaged time cards on canvas, 121.9 x 152.4 cm © Courtesy of the Artist

Page 33

Reza Aramesh, Study of the Head as Cultural Artefacts, 2016, Hand Carved, polished Carrara Marble, 45 x 25 x 25 cm, 17 3/4 x 9 7/8 x 9 7/8 in © Manuel Carreon Lopez

Page 35

Richie Culver, Untitled 6, 2023, Oil and lacquer on canvas, 180 × 200 × 4.5 cm, 70 3/4 × 78 3/4 × 1 3/4 in © Courtesy of the artist

Page 37

Hannah Perry, Gas Lighting 1, 2015, Autobody enamel on aluminium, 100 x 67cm © Courtesy of the artist

Pages 41

Kazuhito Tanaka, Picture(s) #19, 2022, Acrylic and analog chromogenic print on canvas (with acrylic frame), 34,3 x 25,3 x 6, 8 cm © Courtesy of the artist

Page 43

Melissa Steckbauer, Untitled, 2023,, acrylic on paper, 20 x 15 cm, © Courtesy of the artist

Page 44

Melissa Steckbauer, Untitled, 2023, acrylic on paper, 24 x 18 cm © Courtesy of the artist

Page 45

Estrid Lutz, space debris catcher - 21 & - ghost infra - skins the black hole -, 2021, Aluminium honeycomb - pigments- epoxy resin, 175 x 150 x 3 cm, © Courtesy of the artist

Page 47

Installation View, Estrid Lutz, u space debris, 2021, Conceptual Fine Arts MIlano © Courtesy of the artist

Page 49

Allen-Goulder Carpenter, Grandfather 1, Grandfather 2, Larry 1, Larry 2, Polaroids, 10,8 x 8,9 cm, Courtesy of the artist

Backcover

Xie Lei, Refold, 2023, Oil on canvas, 50 x 65 cm, 19 3/4 x 25 5/8 in © Manuel Carreon Lopez

Galerie Kandlhofer, Brucknerstrasse 4, 1040 Vienna, Austria, info@kandlhofer.com, +43 1 503 1167