Maria Petschnig “Petschnigs’”
On Stellar Rays
This event has ended.
On Stellar Rays presents the gallery’s second solo exhibition of Maria Petschnig, including two videos, wall objects and a large-scale immersive installation. Petschnig’s work frequently deals with the intimate, confronting taboos and dominant ideals surrounding gender and sex. By subjugating her own body to the eyes of the camera and the public, Petschnig implicates the spectator in the construction of narrative and character, often going beyond comfortable social conventions.
In the first video, Petschsniggle, the artist engages her twin sister in a sequence of bizarre games, intimate scenarios and child-like interactions. The video was primarily filmed in the attic of their childhood home in Austria and in a summer cottage in Greece. Fraught with unresolved dreamlike narratives and psychosexual tensions, the video has a surreal and hallucinatory atmosphere.
A second video, Vasistas, uses green screen technology to superimpose Petschnig role-playing different personae into suggestive settings – taken from Petschnig’s photo archive of odd and intimate snapshot pictures. The artist is engaged in various undefined activities. The contrast between private and flagrant, familiar and strange, isolates the performer and hints at a fantastic escapism from reality.
In an adjacent space are textile objects made from mattresses and other found materials, leaning against or hanging from wooden panel walls. Presented alogside the videos, they complete Petschnig’s carefully constructed interior installation.
Media
Schedule
from May 05, 2013 to June 16, 2013
Opening Reception on 2013-05-05 from 18:00 to 20:00