Changing Sides | Anemona Crisan

Opening | 22 January 2009, 4 pm
Welcome address | Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen, Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Anemona Crisan in conversation with Prof. Dr. Martina Pippal, art historian, professor at the Institute of Art History, Vienna University

Anemona Crisan's installation-pitched drawings explore the relationship between virtual pictorial space and real exhibition space, revealing the ambivalence of drawings between pictures on a wall and objects in a room. The works' point of departure is the exhibition space itself. Windows, columns, walls, floors, and ceilings, incorporated into the drawings as site-specific elements, are distorted. The white of the wall merges with the white background of the canvas.

The artist's pictorial spaces show drawn life-size figures that seem to transcend the boundaries of the picture, changing sides by moving from one space into the other: they hide under or lean on tables, are laid out on the floor, or look out from under a windowsill. The figures are turned away from the viewer, anonymized, and always depicted fragmentarily; only individual body parts jut out from the walls and are tied up in net-like clothes, which both protect them and seem to prevent any movement.
The exhibition presents the drawings in the very places whose details they comment on. Thus, it is not just the usual exhibition wall but the entirety of the room that is literally turned into an exhibition space.

Curator-in-residence 08|09: Elsy Lahner

Anemona Crisan
Born in Bucarest, Romania, in 1980. Has lived in Austria since 1991. Has studied art history and, since 2002, fine arts under Erwin Bohatsch (Abstract Painting) at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies). Has been working on her doctoral dissertation (on the subject of female artists as draftswomen and the role of drawings in the oeuvre of contemporary female artists in Austria) at the Vienna University's Institute of Art History since 2007.

Exhibition (Selection)
2008  "Vis-à-vis. Zum Raum hinter dem Raum", Künstlergalerie Crisan&Siclodi, Innsbruck, Austria | "...und immer fehlt mir was...", werkstadt graz, Graz, Austria
2007  "Bild der Wissenschaft", FWF, Vienna, Austria
2006  "Erwin Bohatsch und StudentInnen", Investkredit Wien | "piture bc!", Ottakringer Brauerei, Vienna, Austria
2005  "In Wirklichkeit gibt es kein 'War'", Ragnarhof Ottakring, Vienna, Austria

Translation: Wolfgang Astelbauer