Photo: Kunstraum Weikendorf
Kunstraum Weikendorf
—
Rosa Rendl
Rejection
Rejection can mean being rejected by someone, or rejecting someone or something. Are you in the active or passive role? Rejection is an (anticipated) reaction that occurs out of fear of being rebuffed; there is a moment of repetition, and the cycle begins. This is a choreography immanent in social interaction, emerging somewhere between closeness and distance, inside and outside, self and other.
This dualism could also be found in rugs, which negotiate two opposing worlds on a metaphorical level. Like carriers of meaning, they connect the private with the public realm through an inviting gesture. Rugs are often soft, they can be walked and sat on. Rugs seem to generate a feeling of coziness and are accomplices of social warmth. Their colors and patterns have meaning, and they reveal our cultural backgrounds and aesthetic preferences.
Rugs in different sizes made to fit the dimensions of the exhibition space filled the room, reflecting the situation and covering the floor and walls as carpets and tapestries.(1) Each work seemed like A Room of One´s Own, hinting at the importance of having a separate space in the private realm that makes us feel secure and lets us open up in the first place.(2) The photographs revealed everyday objects, apparently in interiors, making it seem as if viewers were looking through the abstracting zoom of a camera lens into someone else’s life. Their gaze penetrated deep into another interior, in a way creating a doubling effect of the window through which the inside of the Kunstraum is visible. The terms Fear, Ego, Opportunity, Idyll, and Response were inscribed as emotional links on the rugs, referring to the intimacy of inner experience and describing subjective emotional states. Through the typography of the words, a textual ornament, even a mesh of social states and conditions, was created.(3) The nexus between the written words and the images was the connection between a you and a me—a network of relationships that intertwined like threads of fabric moving toward an us.
- Barbara Rüdiger
1 “But is a room that is entirely covered with rugs not an imitation? After all, the walls are not made of rugs! Certainly not. These rugs want only to be rugs, and not bricks. They do not want to be mistaken for bricks, or imitate their colors or patterns. Instead, they clearly display their function of covering the wall surface. They fulfill their purpose according the principle of covering.” Adolf Loos, “Das Prinzip der Bekleidung, 1898,” Warum ein Mann gut angezogen sein soll. Enthüllendes über offenbar Verhüllendes (Vienna: Metroverlag, 2007), xy. Translation here by Dr. Ingo Maerker & Michelle Miles.
2 Virginia Woolf, A Room of One´s Own (London: Hogarth Press, 1929).
3 “Text means tissue; but whereas hitherto we have always taken this tissue as a product, a ready-made veil, behind which lies, more or less hidden, meaning (truth), we are now emphasizing, in the tissue, the generative idea that the text is made, is worked out in a perpetual interweaving; lost in this tissue—this texture—the subject unmakes himself, like a spider dissolving in the constructive secretions of its web.” Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, trans. Richard Miller (New York: Hill and Wang, 1975), 64.
Biography
born 1983 in Baden, lives and works in Vienna
Solo and Duo Exhibitions
2023
YOU YOU/REJECTION (with Ketty La Rocca), MLZ Art Dept, Triest
2022
Colour Charts, Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
2019
Rejection, Kunstraum Weikendorf, Weikendorf Kartell, Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
2018
Opportunity Lover, Kunstwerke - Institute for Contemporary Art, Bob´s Pogo Bar, Berlin
Vilgefortis, Lonely Boys and Battle-Ax, Cordova, Barcelona
2017
Playing, Gillmeier Rech, Berlin Concerts of Coreality, Lonely Boys, Sandy Brown, Berlin
2016
Holy and Repulsive, Lucas Hirsch, Düsseldorf
2015
What You Desire, Belvedere21, Vienna
2014
How Alive Are You, Bar Du Bois, Vienna
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025
Being a Girl*!? From Panel Painting to Social Media, Lentos, Linz
2024
Beau Travail, Zirkusgasse, Vienna
You You, curated by Kate Sutton, Lombardi—Kargl, Vienna
Bringing Owls from Athens, Georg Kargl BOX x Callirrhoë, Athens, Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
Body at Play, Georg Kargl BOX, Vienna
2022
Tipsy Tina, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna
2021
Posters by artist bands, Fluc, Vienna
GEORG KARGL EDITIONS, Georg Kargl Permanent, Vienna
Stay Brief, and Leave, Fondation Pernod Ricard, Paris
2020
Would You Be Available…, Georg Kargl Permanent, Vienna
Soft View / Privatissime, Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Essen
Attempt at Rapprochement, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
The Shop, Georg Kargl Permanent, Vienna
2019
On the New - Young Scenes in Vienna, Belvedere21, Vienna
On the New, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck
Performance by Appointment, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna
Lonely Boys performance, Fri-Art, Kunsthalle Fribourg, Fribourg
Sketch I, Halle für Kunst Lüneburg, Lüneburg
Lonely Boys performance, DAMA Project, Torino
2018
Lonely Boys performance, Roter Salon, Volksbühne, Berlin
Culture Wear, Space31, Berlin
Sunglasses, Sundogs, Paris
2017
Aaahhh!!!, Lonely Boys performance, Paris Internationale, Paris
Selfie Mania, Alte Farbik, Gebert Stiftung, Rapperswil
Ritual, Lambdalambdalambda, Prishtina
A night for lonely boys, Kunstwerke - Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
In Awe, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna
Floating Self, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg
Der Verdienst, 2014-2017, The Oracle, Berlin
How far to open up?, Forum Stadtpark, Graz
2016
The Language of things, Belvedere21, Vienna
Dreaming Dictionary, Skulpturinstitut, Vienna
Boil the Ocean, Bodega, New York
Humble Habits Domestic Monuments, HHDM, New York
2015
White SLR, New Bretagne Belle Air, Essen
BOYS, Lonely Boys performance, Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg
NEW NEEDS, Haus Wittmann by Johannes Spalt, Etsdorf/Kamp
Time to Fill up the Glass, Galerie Crone, Berlin
Lonely Boys performance, Künstlerhaus Halle für Kunst und Medien, Graz
2014
Let’s Mingle, Franz Josefs Kai 3, Vienna
Pcnc_Bay XII, Ve.sch, Vienna
Curatorial
2020
The Shop, Georg Kargl Permanent, Vienna
2016
F-Holes, Humble Habits Domestic Monuments, co-organized with HHDM, New York
2015
New Needs, co-curated with Isabella Ritter, Haus Wittmann by Johannes Spalt, Etsdorf/Kamp
Grants / Residencies
2022
State Scholarship for artistic photography, Austria
2016
Recognition Award for Fine Arts, City of Baden
2016
Artist Residency, New York
2012
Artist Residency, Cité des Arts, Paris
2010
Unit-F Editorial Award
Start Scholarship for artistic photography, Austria
Projects
since 2010 LONELY BOYS - performance duo with Daphne Ahlers
since 2013 RENDL – swimwear label
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