STEINBRENER / DEMPF & HUBER: HANDARBEITEN

Project 3
23 February –21 April 2017
Stadtraum Vienna

Steinbrener / Dempf & Huber will be showing their rarely presented studio works. The exhibition title Handarbeiten refers to the rather unusual production process, for the group, of the works shown. The implementation of their large-scale sculptures is usually outsourced and so handwork in the studio allows the artists, in contrast to the meticulously planned workflows for public spaces, freer access. The experimental approach is characteristic of these works and can also be read as three-dimensional designs and ideological sketches. The artists compose themes from historical publications, copies of scientific or cultural works of art and reproductions of their own works into filigree collages and miniature dioramas by cutting them, layering them on top of each other, assemble and gluing them together. Associatively, they arrange motifs and shapes with different proportions and volumes to create surrealistic spaces. This results in overlaps, both in space as well as in significance.

The works are anecdotal, humorous and playful. They are in a transposed sense, which visualize the conversation and the artistic exchange between the sculptor, the photographer and the architect. The works provide an insight into a method of image discovery, which is based on research and the processing of ideas through the permanent rearrangement and extension of repetitive, basic motifs in different spatial situations, whereby each of the three artists contribute their craft.

It is thus, on the one hand, how such multi-layered works of art are created. On the other hand, the method of recurring motifs, both in terms of content and form, gives rise to an essence which tapers the foundation for Steinbrener / Dempf & Huber’s large-format installations in the public realm.

Curator Michaela Seiser

Photo © Steinbrener/Dempf & Huber
www.steinbrener-dempf.com