Solo show: Marlene Hausegger - Détournements (over)

	Marlene Hausegger

Projektraum Viktor Bucher Projektraum Viktor Bucher Praterstrasse 13/1/2 A-1020 Vienna Austria (city map) Send E-mail tel +43 - 1 - 212 69 30 www.projektraum.at

Marlene Hausegger subverts the public space in a very subtle manner. Her interventions-that is the correct term-always relate to existing structures to which we are blind in everyday life (asphalt floors, bridge piers, construction sites, etc.) and are informed by a selective and revealing gaze that seeks to recall our attention to these places we lost awareness of. Sets of meanings we take for granted are destabilized by this form of interventionism, which works with mechanisms of displacement, emphasis, highlighting, and reinterpretation. Relying on utterly simple means such as duct tape, chalk, or adapted pieces of cardboard, Hausegger adds new functions or meanings to the sites she manipulates. The solid dose of irony and humor notwithstanding, we should not fail to notice the implicit political concerns (the work "Fly," for example, wants to bring attention to the tragic situation of African boat people). The transformation or reduction of symbols with political connotations such as flags to their essential formal features, which are ultimately shared by all political and ideological tendencies, grows out of Hausegger's interest in social processes that recall artistic strategies of the Russian avant-garde. Hausegger's Manifestations in Public Space are temporary in nature; anti-monumental in design, they disappear over time, like ephemeral traces. It is only in the photographic documentation that Hausegger's détournements acquire the durability they merit.

Andreas Krištof, section.a

24.11.2012: "Open Studio Day": 11 - 17 Uhr > Vienna Art Week / Gallery Weekend