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260312: Magazin4 David Heitz – In Contact (Motive)
Magazin4
David Heitz – In Contact (Motive)
03.03.2012 – 20.05.2012
Regional Myths, their plausibility ditched
by Wolfang Ölz
The "Magazin4" in Bregenz is a niche player, even if – on the occasion of its 20th anniversary - it is cited to belong to the "most prestigious Austrian art institutions". A short glance at the exhibition archives confirms that this superlative is definitely appropriate. "Magazin4" has had a good run over two decades without taking the quota into consideration (visitors aren't even counted) or the public taste (roughness and outlandishness are deliberately taken into account). It's just natural in the exhibition rooms that a world star like Ayse Erkmen was feted at the Biennale in November 2011, so that – note the timing – in December 2011, he could set the Bregenz public agape (see the artmagazine article). The location in the former grounds of the "Birk" firm as the fourth of formerly four magazines, virtually door-to-door with the Lisi Hämmerle Gallery, a stone's throw from Bregenz's Art Hall and the magnificent new construction of the "Vorarlberg Museum", definitely has a future.
The 20th birthday will be celebrated with the artist, David Heitz, who has decided to devote his work to the Bregenz small-town Idyll and has, with an aesthetically perfect yet somehow oppressive black-and-white photo series, found grotesque and absurd moments that remind one more of the GDR than a bourgeois little town on the Bodensee, which is also the capital city of Vorarlberg. Heitz relieves the regional myths about "üserm subra Ländle" (our clean little land) of their plausibility. In an endless loop, the pictures range from views of the Swabian Sea (the Bodensee) with streets and halt signs to an old BMW with flat tyres. Dirty yachts in the harbour or a bullet hole in a jeweller's shop show something one looks for in vain in a guide book or coffee-table book but which does, in fact, exist. The photocopied scenes swing between gaudy narration and subtle abstraction. The lines on a cobblestone pavement show, on the one hand, the aged form of the street surface and on the other, they remind one of the whole history of Modernism which culminated with Barnett Newman. In brief: "Magazin4" celebrates David Heitz, who received the "Columbus Advancement Award for Contemporary Art" – one of the highest German art prizes in this category, on its customary high standard. And also the group exhibition, "Right of Refusal" planned for the summer 2012 and "Movement in Winter" 2012/2013 promise to be just as interesting as Felix Schramm's single exhibition, "Intersection".
Magazin 4
6900 Bregenz, Bergmannstraße 6
Tel: +43 / 5574 / 41 01 51 1
Fax: +43 / 5574 / 41 01 50 0
E-mail: mail@magazin4.at
http://www.magazin4.at
Opening hours: Wed-Fri 16-19, Sat, Sun 12-16 hours
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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260312
Magazin 4
6900 Bregenz, Bergmannstraße 6
Tel: +43 / 5574 / 41 01 51 1, Fax: +43 / 5574 / 41 01 50 0
Email: mail@magazin4.at
http://www.magazin4.at
Öffnungszeiten: Mi-Fr 16-19, Sa, So 12-16 h
Magazin 4
6900 Bregenz, Bergmannstraße 6
Tel: +43 / 5574 / 41 01 51 1, Fax: +43 / 5574 / 41 01 50 0
Email: mail@magazin4.at
http://www.magazin4.at
Öffnungszeiten: Mi-Fr 16-19, Sa, So 12-16 h
