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081012: Bawag Contemporary Katie Paterson – Inside the desert…
Bawag Contemporary
Katie Paterson – Inside the desert…
13.09.12 – 11.11.12
Stardust: Against the Loss
By Susanne Rohringer
In her first solo exhibit in Austria, the Scottish artist Katie Paterson attempts to make hidden cosmological processes visible. The artifact stands at the end of a process that commenced in nature and which the artist attempts to interpret and shape.
Katie Paterson became famous with her work “Vatnajökull”, her final work at the Slade School of Fine Arts in London 2007. She deals with impressions she gathered in Iceland where she was inspired by the geysers and volcano’s, and, with the help of an underwater microphone, made the melting of glaciers audible. Neon light figures provide the exhibition visitors with a cell phone number that, when it rings, sounds like the rumble of a glacier.
With her visualization of the invisible, Katie Paterson follows a long art historical tradition ranging from works by Marcel Duchamp, Bruce Naumann and On Kawara. Paterson tries to awaken our interest in our environment, something that is rarely possible without the appropriate equipment. She raises fundamental questions on how the universe developed out of nothing and how the explosion of stars is linked to our lives, and tries to interpret these questions artistically. Her “History of Darkness” documents and archives the dark zones in different areas of the universe. It shows pictures of observatories from where this black of the universe was photographed at a variety of distances, respectively light years. Paterson cataloged these shots and arranged pictures according to how many light years separate them from our planet. These black images are stored in a portable box, which in itself is a microcosm visualizing the shell of a microcosm. A few large-format photographs of these images of darkness are also shown in the exhibition.
With “Dying Stars Letters” (2011), she stays in line with conceptual work similar to that of the 1960’s. In one of the letters, one finds the succinct sentence “I am sorry to inform you of the death of the star 2011kd”. Addressed to different people, she informs them about the death of stars. In the meantime, Paterson has joined a huge network of astronomers who regularly inform her about news going on in the universe.
But, as she proved in the Venice Biennial 2011, her work can also be much more cheerful. With “100 Billion Suns” she set off confetti explosions at 4 p.m. every day at different locations throughout Venice with the confetti rain simulating the light effect of sun explosions. She created a kind of miniature happening, an intervention similar to those by Roman Signer, but with a different background.
All in all, one wishes Paterson lots of success on her tedious path through the universe.
Bawag Contemporary
1010 Vienna, Franz Josefs Kai 3
http://www.bawagcontemporary.at
Opening hours: Daily from 14.00 – 20.00 hours
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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081012
BAWAG P.S.K. Contemporary
1010 Wien, Franz Josefs Kai 3
http://www.bawagpskcontemporary.at
Öffnungszeiten: täglich 14-20h
BAWAG P.S.K. Contemporary
1010 Wien, Franz Josefs Kai 3
http://www.bawagpskcontemporary.at
Öffnungszeiten: täglich 14-20h
