Left but a Trace brings together work by two Austrian artists, Sissi Farassat and Gregor Neuerer, whose respective practices deal with ideas of temporality, identity, intimacy, documentation and site-specificity.
These works retain a deliberate ambiguity, provoking various explanations and interpretations without ever giving too much away.
GREGOR NEUERER WORK
(for details of Sissi Farassat’s work see menu on the left hand side)
In his practice Gregor Neuerer looks at the memories carried within interior spaces, bringing these histories to the fore through subtle interventions.
In Dedicated to the Neighbours, an in-sync slide projection, the artist explores the temporary presence of people in the modular space of a domestic environment. This work is based on the English terraced house, one of the first extensive architectural solutions which approached the private house as a serial product and the precursor for American suburbia. The drawings on the walls framing the house to either side portray Neuerer’s own history in relation to the space, moving from one slide to the next with almost imperceptible discrepancies. The experience of temporal change is aligned with the physical, architectural space of the house.
The three prints in New Tenant are part of a body of work that relates to social and political contexts of contemporary and modern urban architectural concepts such as the English Terraced House, the 19th century Viennese Apartment House or urban developments that constitute large-scale residential and commercial areas. The concepts revolving around these spaces refer to the political and economical interests of the area, as well as to the user who articulates a personal and often alternative understanding of the place he or she inhabits.
Neurer will create a new site-specific work during the exhibition, In the corridors of a gallery (and former warehouse). In a series of one-hour tours on Sun 17 February visitors will be led into the unseen spaces of Cornerhouse’s building, where Neurer will create a drawing installation. (See related events for more details).
Left but a Trace brings together work by two Austrian artists, Sissi Farassat and Gregor Neuerer, whose respective practices deal with ideas of temporality, identity, intimacy, documentation and site-specificity.
These works retain a deliberate ambiguity, provoking various explanations and interpretations without ever giving too much away.
Sissi Farassat WORK
(for details of Gregor Neuerer’ s work see menu on the left hand side)
In her work Sissi Farassat produces intimate, secret moments without exposing too much. The audience is invited to explore and question the boundary between the personal gaze and the object/the art work/the artist. How close can I get to the work without crossing a certain border? Where is the border? Farassat leaves these questions unresolved, encouraging the viewer to address their own position as spectator.
A series of Polaroids (Untitled, 2007) shows the artist being secretly photographed from a distance by an observing voyeur. The gaze of the photographer is doubled by that of the audience, who are placed in a similar problematic position. This voyeuristic perspective is also exposed in a film, produced specifically for this exhibition, Sissi, c’est moi; filmed in an original setting of a peep show this work showcases the artist who lays on a moving platform for the entire time. The viewer of the video becomes the voyeur of the peep show, watching a woman on a monitor that is reminiscent of a peep show window.
In Wer ist das? (Who is this?) Sissi Farassat invites the audience to imagine what lies ‘behind her photographs’. In this new series the artist redraws the outlines of women with a thread showing only the reverse side of the photographs. Only the silhouettes and poses of these women can be distinguished as the viewer is left to image the ‘real’ photograph from a few sparse lines of thread. Throughout her work Farassat questions our judgements and expectations of each other; asking if one really gets to know a person or if we merely see a pose or a superficial image.