2008 - Irene ANDESSNER
Ursula K.
Irene Andessner/Paolo Leone
Portraitprojekt I.A. »Ursula K.«
Opening: 09. October 2008 at 7:30 pm
Exhibition duration: 10. October till 08. November 2008
About the work:
In autumn 2007 Irene Andessner and Paolo Leone met up at ten locations in Vienna. Following the roles requested by the Italian photographer, the Austrian performance artist, made-up and dressed as a depressed woman, mixed with the public in each place – as a woman who has known better days and does not expect much more from life, and who frequents places in which for sure nothing unexpected is going to happen to her: a cinema in which post-war stars play the leading roles. A launderette where she gawps at the portholes of the front-loaders, made cloudy by the worn washing inside. A suburban pub in which she makes a small glass of wine last an hour. A disco shed where Turkish guest-workers meet lonely Viennese girls. The Südbahnhof, which is to be demolished because time’s train has passed it by. Or Vienna’s Pratersauna, which has grown old along with its clientele and whose days are numbered because of its dilapidated condition.
The photographs belong to the ‘Portrait Project I.A.’ group of works, a long-term project in which Irene Andessner has been making herself available to artist colleagues as a model since 2001. For her in-role self-portraits the well-known artist follows her colleagues’ wishes and direction regarding role, location and styling. As the initials ‘I.A.’ in the title of the project indicate (they can be read as ‘Im Auftrag’, by order of), in this group of works Andessner gives the order, as it were, for her self-portraits to independent artists. In this way, by setting up a situation in which she herself initiates a staging by someone else, she creates the paradox of a self-portrait authored by another.
For further information please contact us:
art@brunnhofer.at
