Anna Riess ‚Boundaries to go‘ 2024
Opening of the exhibition IDENTITIES with works by Anna Riess , Eva Ursprung & Christian Kri Kammerhofer, curated by Irmi Horn, and presentation of the kunstGarten 20-year-anniversary
publication “Paradise found”.
Opening statements by the city councillor Dr. Günter Riegler and the art historian Dr.in Tanja Gurke.
The unique identity of each mammalian human exists as long as the individual is not a clone.
The artists focus on how this identity can have an effect, and which forms of identifying are set in a diverse society of individuals and groups. They approach this topic in a wide variety of forms, use different materials, and specifically choose the medium that seems most suitable to them to communicate their respective concerns humorously or critically.
The artists approach the topic in different ways.
The anniversary publication, Paradise Found, introduces various personal impressions of the identity of kunstGarten. It contains, among other things, 40 contributions written especially for kunstGarten by kunstGarten artists, such as texts by Barbara Frischmuth, Radka Denemarková, Kurt Palm, photos by Eilert Asmervik, Eva Beierheimer, Sabina Hörtner, Lisa Reiter, Rosa Rendl, Carol Robertson, Regula Dettwiler, Renate Kordon, Laura Schawelka and many more. Also included are compositions by Eva Jimenéz, Berndt Luef, and Henrik Sande.
Concept and design: FONDAZIONE. Europe (Alexander Nussbaumer & Anaïs Horn)
Paradise found. (Jubiläumspublikation 2004—2024, Konzept
und Gestaltung: FONDAZIONE. Europa,
Alexander Nussbaumer &. Anaïs Horn)
Anna Riess is an artist living and working in Vienna. All her creations are made in her studio in the second district. After studying architecture followed by a master’s degree in cultural anthropology in 2012, Anna began to focus on creating with her hands.
Through a three-year course in contemporary jewellery design, Riess began to express her critique of society by shaping objects in close relation to the female body in ceramic, metal and textile.
Through the experiential values of being a mother, Anna Riess has a strong urge to address the female body as a subject of creative research and inspiration and to highlight social conditions. By taking up the pliable and fragile qualities of clay and porcelain in order to carry out an “annihilation of the everyday”, she succeeds in creating a new language of form that arouses curiosity. She celebrates the nipple as an ornament in search of contact, similar to an eye.
She became known for her sculpture “Speckgürtel” or the small “Tittitassen”.
Anna Riess exhibits internationally and has already had the pleasure of working with the following partners:
Volkstheater Wien 2018, Café Kandl 2019, Atelier Karasinski 2021&22, mama matters 2021, Christina Seewald 2021, Sophia Süßmilch 2021&23, Glein 2022, Creme de la Creme 2022&23.
Exhibitions
2016 regarding revolt, group show, curated by Eva Zar at RRRiotfestival, Vienna, AUSTRIA
2017 initiation, concept, organisation ‘SchmuckSkulptur’ Nordbahnhalle, group show, Vienna, AUSTRIA
2018 diploma chosen for „Symbiosis“ Art Jewellery Night Budapest / Ékszerek Éjszakája, Budapest, HUNGARY
2018 diploma chosen for JOYA 2018 Barcelona Art Jewellery & Objects , Barcelona, SPAIN
2019 9th of March, Moskau Exhibition Center of Saint-Petersburg Artist Union, RUSSIA
2019 group show and workshop „Von Händen“ Anna Khodorkovskaya & Anna Riess Stadtlabor, Vienna, AUSTRIA
2021 group Show „Sonntag Nachmittag auf der Insel“ Tina Graf, Anna Riess, Eva Yurkova, Vienna, AUSTRIA
2022 FINAL SALE – Systemerhalterinnen intervenieren, Jan Arnold Gallery, MQ, Vienna, AUSTRIA
2022 artist talk online and group show, Haus des Papiers, Berlin, GERMANY
2022 ‘EXPO22‘ group Show, Spoiler Aktionsraum, Berlin, GERMANY
2022 ‘belly bacon’ at Museum Angerlehner, AUSTRIA
2023 ‘belly bacon’ at Goldschmiedehaus Hanau, GERMANY
2023 artist talk & workshop at Haugar kunstmuseum, Tønsberg, NORWAY
2023 on 8th of March ’set in stone’ up for Auction, Artcare, Vienna, AUSTRIA
2023 Clay on display, group show, Vienna, AUSTRIA
2024 ‘belly bacon’ at SeMoCA, Seoul Museum of Craft Art, Seoul, KOREA
Eva Ursprung presents videos videos that deal with the identity of women and the identity of places.
Filmstill In the Loop
In the Loop, 2022, 6′56″
The work is inspired by Irina Karamarkovic‘s project “Housewives Strike Back” for International Women’s Day 2022, an online exhibition of 30-second video statements on unpaid women’s work.
A woman cuts vegetables, navigates between stove and ‘pole dancing’ poles, and between recurring chores she clumsily exercises a dance, wearing old-fashioned high heels. The accompanying music tries just as awkwardly to underscore the movements, building dramatic moods somewhere between silent film and suspense. In the play with traditional housewife clichés, sexual metaphors are ironically served, savored and broken. How deeply do these images reside in us and what space do they still occupy in an age of dissolving gender roles?
After a week of documenting everyday activities, the footage was barely distinguishable for me; between housework, patchy dance practice, and twirling with the computer, the days blurred into one another; I was caught in an endless loop of recurring actions.
Eva Ursprung, Indigo Haven, 2023, Filmstill
Indigo Haven, Video, 5′ 11″, Indonesien/Austria 2023
After Eva Ursprung explored the site, this heritage-listed space of Cagan Budaya Bulurejo and its surroundings (a former indigo and later sugar warehouse without indigo or sugar; the weekend retreat of the seventh sultan to visit his wives filled with the residents’ stories about a snake and a cow protecting the space and showing themselves to new people in the village), explored and talked to the people in the village and a historian of the region, this work tries to transform history, present, imagination and myths into a multi-layered video. It captures the traces of the past in this place in relation to the surrounding land and the female body, from the shadows of the past to the present realities and the ongoing struggle of women to move on.
People still experience the ghosts of the past, they hear them, and sometimes they emerge in blurred images.
With thanks to: Bayu Widodo, Irene Agrivina, Andi Firda Arifa, Adnan Aditya, Zuraisa Putri Saleha, Angga Sukma Permana, Beltsa Sukma Bimantara, Gestana Elvica Andrean, R. Prapta Susila, Eny Sudibyatmanti, Ahmad Athoillah, Edi Haryanto, and all the kind, supportive people in the village and the production team.
Christian KRI Kammerhofer gives answers in five pictures to internal questions about his new identity as a father that arose as from a watercolor painting by his son.
Christian KRI Kammerhofer, O.T., 2024, Aquarell auf Papier, 59,4×42 cm
Christian Kri Kammerhofer, born in 1971 in Bruck an der Mur, completed an apprenticeship as a gilder and painter in Kindberg, then attended the sculpture master class in Graz with Erwin Talker from 2001-2003.
2013 to 2016 curator of the Schaufenstergalerie Scharf/Feinkost Mild Graz.
Solo exhibitions:
2021 – “waking, dreaming and whisking”, Airport Gallery Graz.
2020 – “Annähernd Angorawolle”, Querort Gallery, Graz; “LEIDENschaftunVERMÖGEN”, Atelier 12, Graz
2017 – “Heal your wounds”, Narren Kastl, Frohnleiten
2016 – “Coffee for the battered soul”, Atelier 12, Graz
2015 – “Crystallisations”, Minoriten, Graz
2014 – “Gefällt mir-Gefällt mir nicht mehr”, Gallery 44QM, Hartberg
2012 – “geKRItzel”, Gallery Eugen Lendl, Graz
2011 – “irReal”, KHG Gallery, Graz
2010 – “defeKt”, Gallery Eugen Lendl, Graz
2009 – “profaner Altar”, Gallery kunst.wirt.schaft, Graz
2007 – “my neighbours”, Fotogalerie Grazer Rathaus, Graz Collective exhibition selection
2022 – “Lost in the City, Citypark, Graz”.
2021 – “14 artists of this city”, Citypark, 8020 Graz