“FIXING MY GAZE”
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PFERD VIENNA
Medwedweg 3, 1110 Vienna
10. 10. – 11.11. 2019

Leon Höllhumer
Evelina Jonsson
Yein Lee
Céline Struger
Chin Tsao

invited by Céline Struger
FC: Stefan Pani


”Before I started my sculpture studies, I went to see an eye doctor. I knew since childhood that due to my strabismus (bong eyes) I am not able to perceive spatial depth. I wanted to know what this would mean for my future sculptural practice. When I had to look at the board of the Lang-Stereotest, depicting simple objects (a star, a cat, a car), all I saw was image noise.”

Leon Höllhumer is performing as absurd characters, wearing ceramic masks exploring the site with limited vision. In addition to a ceramic saw and aluminium casts he is showing a large-scale photographic work that oscillates between figurative and abstract form, in this case functioning as an eye test. Evelina Jonsson shows an anaglyph print wallpaper, titled  Fuscum subnigrum. The art piece can be watched with hand-made 3D-glasses. It is a response to the quadratura ceiling paintings, or the trompe l'œil extensions of rooms of the Baroque era, where a certain point of view grants access to a spacial dimension otherwise hidden among distorted forms. In this case facilitated by anaglyph glasses that, as the print, are inspired by skewed contemporary representations of nature. Yein Lee contributes two sculptures with the titles ”my stomach feels funny” I and II. They hang from the ceiling, connecting each other with pipes, reacting PFERD's industrial atmosphere. With the transparency of it, it confuses the views and intervenes in exhibition space, as if a ghost-animal is floating around, who swallowed plastics and e-waste. Céline Struger shows a modular floor sculpture, filled with water and ink. It is loosely based on a drawing of the op-art artist Victor Vasarely and is supposed to incorporate the depth and planarity of an outdoor water surface into the exhibition space. Chin Tsao/Pope Sangreta produced the sculptures ”Insomniac’s Blanket” from silicone, cotton and copper and Y.E.S. I DO!” From papier-mâché, steel and brass. The pieces refer to the poem ”Stolen” (1997) by David Finlay, which inspired her vocal performance “I stole the torturer’s tongue” at the closing event”.

Céline Struger