Svenja Deininger / Nicolaus Schafhausen
Svenja Deininger in conversation with Nicolaus Schafhausen
20. 8. 19, 7 p.m. – 8 p.m.
In my work, the beginning is always determined as well. In fact, I usually make a complete body of work for each new exhibition. That means that all of these new works follow a specific concept. Only rarely does one work stand by itself. However, during my process, I will of course focus on one work at a time, contemplating each subsequent step. All of the entailed decisions, even if they are rooted in my subjective impression, are made consciously and rationally; they reflect an entirety of thought. I always work while keeping my original intention and the possible audience in mind. I like to compare my works to words in a sentence. The latter is never truly complete without the subject, verb, and object, or without a sign at the end, such as the period or question mark.
(Svenja Deininger with Stephanie Buhmann in: Stephanie Buhmann, Berlin Studio Conversations – Twenty Women Talk About Art, Berlin 2017)
Svenja Deininger’s presentation will be followed by a discussion with Nicolaus Schafhausen on aspects of the production, reception and exhibition of her pictures in different exhibition spaces and institutions.
Information
- Venue
- Galerie 5020
- Date
- 20. 8. 19, 7 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Svenja Deininger
Svenja Deininger, born in Vienna in 1974, lives and works in Vienna, Milan (IT) and Berlin. Graduated in 2003 at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (DE), (Prof. Albert Oehlen).
Suspended in a hybrid space somewhere between the abstract and the figurative, Svenja Deininger’s works combine various elements of a visual approach that includes the memories of objects and formal intuitions. (…) Her canvases become a synthesis of tactile possibilities and architectural references, demonstrating how abstract and apparently non-figurative painting need not abandon the elaboration of reality but can be the result of an intense contemplation and representation of its data. (see Luigi Fassi, 2017)
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
2018 Crescendo, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY (US). 2017 Echo of a Mirror Fragment, Vienna Secession, Vienna. Second Chances First Impressions, Norton Museum, Palm Beach, FL (US). Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna. Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE (US). Second Sentence, Federica Schiavo Gallery, Milan.
Group exhibitions
2019 Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich (CH). 2018 Surface Work, Victoria Miro Gallery, London. Borderline Relation, Eastward Prospectus, Bucharest. Testbild, Neues Museum, Nürnberg (DE). 2017 Abstract Painting Now!, Kunsthalle Krems, Krems (AT). Other Spaces. Collected #7, Kunstforum, Vienna.
Publications
Svenja Deininger: Echo of a Mirror Fragment, Artist Book/Catalogue Secession, Revolver Verlag, Vienna/Berlin 2017.
Svenja Deininger: Second Chances First Impressions, exh. cat., Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach 2017.
Stephanie Buhmann: Berlin Studio Conversations. Twenty Women Talk About Art, The Green Box, Berlin 2017.
Nicolaus Schafhausen
Nicolaus Schafhausen is a German-born curator, director, author, and editor of numerous publications on contemporary art. Since 2011 he has been the Strategic Director of Fogo Island Arts, Canada, an initiative of Shorefast, a charitable foundation dedicated to finding alternative solutions for the revitalisation of areas prone to emigration.
Schafhausen is the Artistic Director of Tell me about yesterday tomorrow (November 2019 - August 2020), an exhibition at the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism about the future of the past. He has curated numerous international exhibitions such as Media City Seoul 2010 and the Dutch Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010. He was the curator of the German Pavilion for the 52nd (2007) and 53rd Venice Biennale (2009), and curator of the Kosovo Pavilion for the 56th Venice Biennale (2015). Schafhausen also co-curated the 6th Moscow Biennale in 2015.
In addition to curating exhibitions, national pavilions and other projects, Schafhausen has led institutions such as the Frankfurt Kunstverein (DE), Stuttgart Künstlerhaus (DE), and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam (NL). He was Founding Director of the European Kunsthalle, Cologne (DE), conceived as a project to examine the conditions and structures of contemporary art institutions independent of local government mandates. In 2019 he stepped down as Director of the Kunsthalle Wien/Vienna, a position he had held since 2012, for political reasons, observing that the future of such cultural institutions was thrown into question by rising nationalist policies in Austria and elsewhere. He has called for stronger support from independent state institutions and cultural administrations in times of right-wing populist movements. In the future Schafhausen aims to work beyond the boundaries of conventional institutions.
Exhibitions
2019 Tell me about yesterday tomorrow, NS-Dokumentationszentrum München, Munich (DE). 2018 Antarktika. Eine Ausstellung über Entfremdung, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna. 2017 Thomas Bayrle. Wenn etwas zu lang ist – mach es länger, Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. How To Live Together, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna. 2015 Politischer Populismus, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna. How To Gather? Acting in a Center in a City in the Heart of the Island of Eurasia?, (co-curated with Bart De Baere and Defne Ayas) 6th Moscow Biennial, Moscow. 2014 Disappearing Things, (co-curated with Vanessa Joan Müller) 55th October Salon, Belgrade.
Publications
Brigitte Oetker, Nicolaus Schafhausen (eds.): Was wissen wir? Was haben wir? Was fehlt uns? Was lieben wir?. Jahresring 65, Sternberg Press, Berlin 2018.
Alexandra McIntosh, Nicolaus Schafhausen (eds.): Edgar Leciejewski: Tones, Fogo Island Arts/Sternberg Press, Berlin 2018.
Defne Ayas, Bart De Baere, Marie Egger, Nicolaus Schafhausen (eds.): How To Gather. Acting Relations, Mapping Positions, Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam 2017.
Luca Lo Pinto, Nicolaus Schafhausen (eds.): Pierre Bismuth. Things I Remember I Have Done, But Don’t Remember Why I Did Them, Sternberg Press, Berlin 2016.
Nicolaus Schafhausen: Isa Genzken, Oil: German Pavilion, Biennale di Venezia 2007, DuMont-Literatur-und-Kunst-Verlag, Cologne 2007.
