Michael Kienzer

Galerie Hohenlohe Bäckerstrasse 3 A-1010 Vienna Austria (city map) Send E-mail tel +43 (0)1 - 512 97 20 www.galeriehohenlohe.at

Michael Kienzer
Details

Michael Kienzer is well known for inverting the meanings of objects. Objects or situations are torn out of their familiar settings and are placed in a new context. In some way Kienzer analyses the categories of things: by means of destruction, transformation, disassociation and then reconstruction, he puts both foundations and limits of seemingly rigid relationships and configurations into question.
In his third show at Gallery Hohenlohe, Michael Kienzer presents minimalist and abridged installations. This does not mean, however, that they do not fill the rooms. One piece is a carefully stacked, stable pile of wood, or, if seen in another way, aluminium. To this end the artist has had about two hundred pieces of firewood cast in aluminium. Apart from the fact that the consolidation of material plays a central role in much of his work, here Kienzer has let himself be inspired above all by the material wood. Wood is a living material, a symbol for warmth and comfort, whereas aluminium is completely different, a "dead and cold" material. "By transforming wood into aluminium I am primarily interested in the shift from warm to cold", says Kienzer. It is for this reason that Kienzer considers casting such an important artistic means, as objects become thereby redefined and it is possible to perceive them in a new way.

The main material of the show is aluminium. Here and there, however, the observer finds surprising details - for example erasers assuming, on one hand, a separating function and a load-bearing or supporting function on the other. Like the footnotes in some books, which not only supplement the text, but miraculously make the text what it is, the details at the "edges" of Kienzer's works are far more than mere spots of colour amid the grey aluminium. They are rather essential elements of his sculptures. Who can say for sure whether one finds the devil in details or our dear Lord, as the art and culture historian Aby Warburg wrote. Maybe we find simply art there.

Doris Wallnöfer

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