The location
This year's Vienna Contemporary is quite different from last year's, to say the least. No airy, spacious exhibition halls awaited visitors—instead, cramped, stuffy spaces in the middle of an ongoing construction site. One positive aspect is that this year's admission was free. This aspect, however, led people to shove each other along narrow alleys between the dusty walls of the Alte Post building (in Vienna's city center) and the spotless white gallery walls. While the free entry is laudable in terms of dismantling barriers and opening up to Vienna's city population (and beyond), other aspects are directly counterproductive: for instance, that the fair is neither accessible via wheelchairs or buggies and the makeshift restrooms with pit toilets are, besides an olfactory disgrace, a sanitary concern in times of Covid. Since that restroom is the first thing on your right when entering the fair, avoid it at all costs; otherwise, you may set yourself up for a bad start. But imagine you've had a good start (unlike the reviewer), and you head straight to the booths.
This year, due to space limitations, galleries beyond Vienna were granted space at Alte Post. In contrast, most Viennese galleries just stayed put at their usual gallery locations, dispersed across Vienna. Lucky, if you're one of those galleries situated closely to the fair in the 1st district, not so lucky if your gallery happens to be located at the outskirts of Vienna. Vienna Contemporary offers tours to these galleries, that much be said. What follows are a few highlights from galleries located directly at Alte Post.
Zone 1
Situated at the end of a long corridor, we started viewing the so-called "Zone 1", a special section of the fair featuring solo shows by emerging artists. Gabriele Senn Gallery showed works by Kathi Hofer that probe the line between defining what art is and what is junk.
Quote #1, (2021) by Kathi Hofer, Gabriele Senn Gallery booth, Vienna Contemporary 2021. Photo: Melanie Sindelar
Pots, bullying, and butts
The main exhibition "hall," in a tube-like vault, also showed several noteworthy positions. This includes the works by Japanese artist Haruko Maeda, born in 1983, based in Vienna, and represented by Elektrohalle Rhomberg from Salzburg. "The great bouquet" is particularly significant. Stacked on top of a plant pot from OBI (an Austrian hardware store), you can find the usual litter produced by a somewhat-30, somewhat-single person. Crushed Chinese take-away boxes compete for your attention with used razors, empty tobacco packets, and a piece of ham (who on earth throws away ham in Austria? - Sacrilege!) With great love for detail and confident painterly strokes, her work passes as a contemporary reincarnation of the otherwise dusty genre of the still-life.
The great bouquet (2021), Oil on Canvas, by Haruko Maeda, Elektrohalle Rhomberg booth, Vienna Contemporary 2021. Photo: Melanie Sindelar
Returning to the idea of artistic self-reflection, Osip Toff's mixed-media work provides a "Guide to self-bullying for artists," shown at Ural Vision's booth, a gallery, or as they call themselves, an "international art space" based in Yekaterinburg, Budapest, and Vienna. While most galleries were at this point, two days into the fair, tired of talking, Ural Vision's staff was eager to describe Toff's work. As I got explained, Osip Toff's other works are worth a look as well, which exhibit a cozy cold-war aesthetic.
I am emphasizing these works as they might be at threat of being overshadowed by the booth's second exhibited series of works by Vladimir Abikh. The lenticular prints of Instagram and other social media screenshots of the latter have drawn a consistent crowd of fans.
SELF-BULLYING, 2021, by Osip Toff, at Ural Vision booth, Vienna Contemporary 2021, Photo: Melanie Sindelar
Proceeding or being shoved further along the tube to the next booth, I discover the pleasant works of Belarusian artist Vasilisa Palianina, represented by Syntax Gallery (Moscow). Is there a better way to end this review with a work that makes you weirdly cringe at the thought of greenish, steel-like hands grabbing the piggy-pink buttocks displayed in the works?
I love you, I love you so much. And are you?, 2020 , Oil on canvas, by Vasilisa Palianina, Syntax Gallery booth, Vienna Contemporary 2021, Photo: Melanie Sindelar
You can see these and many more works until Sunday, 5th September. If you missed the fair, the works are shown on Artsy.net until 19th September.
Visit Vienna Contemporary's homepage here.
Comments