Installation view
Artist as Troublemaker
Austrian Cultural Forum New York


This project was commissioned by the Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz, Austria. This is the largest universal museum institution in Central Europe, founded in 1811 and spanning 22 departments and museums, from contemporary art to the oldest disciplines, such as geology, archeology, and botany. The work is based on a selection of photographs of exhibitions, from the earliest I could find in the archive up until quite recent ones. These photographs constitute a visual memory of the museum and show exhibition architecture over a long period. They are about the very different gazes of and ways of photographing and seeing these spaces.
The drawings, reduced forms of exhibitions and spaces, are shown as overlapping slides in the first, larger projection. The drawings are used as a tool to look very closely at the photographs and focus on particular elements. The medium allows the most diverse locations and times in the museum to overlap, and takes the viewer on an associative and poetic walk through the museum spaces. The photographs are shown in a slower rhythm in the second projection, always in a new combination with the drawings. The changing combinations of drawings and photographs thereby allow for new associations, possibly opening up new readings of both.
The photographs and drawings make issues regarding display and exhibition visible. The hierarchy and order of things, objects, display architectures, and spaces are the central focus of the work.


2 slide projections, 15:30 min.