galerie | michaela | stock
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Patrick Baumüller Cecilia Bullo Elaine Byrne Ingrid Cogne Marie Farrington
Opening: 04.09.2022
Until: 06.11.2022
This exhibition took place in the old gallery rooms of galerie michaela stock at Alserstraße 26, 1090 Vienna.
The artists and the curator were present during the vernissage.
This group show Material Stories at galerie michaela stock emphasises five artists engaged in the materiality of making or working with objects, in placing them in the gallery, thinking of gallery scale and character, and how the works relate to other work on display. Their separateness is clear. Their connection palpable.
Material Stories
‘Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.’
Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Illuminations, 1955, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt A.M.)
Benjamin championed the idea of the image being available to as wide an audience as possible. For people who were unlikely to visit works in a museum or gallery, they could become familiar with the image through photography and reproduction. This democratisation of access to ideas and form was exhilarating of course, which then progressed through moving image and television, and from there the internet gives an access that seems infinite.
During the pandemic, technology further provided the connection to the worlds of culture and art while isolated, was embraced. Notions of this ‘coming together’ was wrapped up in the technological revolution taking place as an explosion of potential. However, when restrictions lifted, the live event was yearned for, the in-person became laden with freedom and autonomy. If we just examine the basis for the exhibition to be experienced, it was to re-assert the need for physical presence.
Read morePatrick Baumüller brings humour – he also grabs abstractions and make them physical, occupying space in a fleeting yet memorable way and taking pleasure in interventions in the here and now. Elaine Byrne catches a time and place in her photographs and video which are of a place that is gone but eternal. Cecilia Bullo mixes her materials and her objects combine fine sculpture and materials that are rough-hewn. Ingrid Cogne manipulates basic materials to challenge the performance of vulnerable knowledge and further activate the viewers in questions about immateriality and sustainability in the 21st century. Marie Farrington explores materiality in her installation along with ephemerality in her prints which are beautifully strong and fragile.
The enquiries and concerns of these artists, their compositions and fabrications, their materiality, re-assert the idea of the encounter and the engagement with the visitor which develops into different stories for each person – these elements are all the Material Stories provoked by this exhibition.
galerie michaela stock and Fire Station Artists’ Studios continue to embed the connections between Ireland and Austria, establishing commonalities and exploring differences, in exhibitions, studio visits, working on exhibitions and events to create links between fellow Europeans.
Support by Culture Ireland, Arts Council of Ireland.
