Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2014: Leander Schönweger
The Fog Disperses
2014 Kunsthalle wien Exhibition
© Stephan Wyckoff
October 15 to November 16, 2014
The Fog Disperses is an impressive scenario situated at the glass cube of Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz. In the exhibition space, Leander Schönweger sets up what appears to be a deserted campsite. A campfire is burning. We see opened cans of beer standing around. Outdoor cooking and eating paraphernalia has been unpacked but remains unused. At the opposite end of the space, a car with no passengers sits at an idle, lights on and with a door open, but nobody is there. What has happened, here? And why?
Evolving from his diploma project The Creator Has a Master Plan, which won the Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2014, Leander Schönweger has developed an installation for the exhibition space at Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz that indicates mysteries, rather than – as its title might suggest – offers solutions. This installation is not an adapted version of Schönweger’s diploma project, but an entirely new work that does, however, feature some recognizable parallels and analogies.
Like his diploma project, The Fog Disperses is an in-situ installation: both works were created especially for the respective exhibition venues. “I always imagine the space along with the work. Even if there’s no real space, I’ll usually imagine a hypothetical one,” says Schönweger about his approach.
The artist creates situations, in which nothing seems firmly established. No information is provided beyond that, which one sees, and any interpretation is left to the observer’s imagination. The diverse range of possible associations includes the psychological, the fantastical and the poetic while simultaneously evoking questions and thoughts on the mechanisms of power and control, on freedom, on longing and fear, and on the matter of who might really be pulling the strings.
Curator: Lucas Gehrmann
Artist: Leander Schönweger
(born 1986 in Meran, IT) lives and works in Vienna. From 2007 to 2014, he studied with Professor Erwin Wurm and Guest Professor Martin Walde at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Jury 2014:
Gerald Bast (Rector, University of Applied Arts Vienna) Nicolaus Schafhausen (Director, Kunsthalle Wien) Alexandra Grimmer (Freelance curator)
Lucas Gehrmann (Curator, Kunsthalle Wien)
Siegfried Schöffauer (hs art service austria)
The Kunsthalle Wien Prize
The Kunsthalle Wien Prize, a joint project initiated by the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the Kunsthalle Wien, has been awarded to a graduate student of the Institute of Fine Arts and Media Art annually since 2002. This year, hs art service austria was providing the EUR 3,000 prize money for the first time.
Leander Schönweger. Die Nebel lichten sich
Photographic fragments, preparatory notes, and recent sketches accompany installation views and texts in Die Nebel lichten sich. Both exhibition and catalogue are the outcome of a cooperative project between the Kunsthalle Wien and the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
The foregoing texts and images are provided and copyrighted by: https://kunsthallewien.at
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