The internationally oriented MAK Collection of Contemporary Art funds its focus on selected Austrian artistic stances mainly via gallery grants from the bm:ukk—Austria’s Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Culture. Acquisitions since 2009 have included works by artists such as Josef Dabernig, Andreas Fogarasi and Peter Friedl.
Mathias Poledna
Double Old Fashion, 2009
16 mm, color, no sound, 20 min.
Edition 4/5 + 1AP
In his installation Double Old Fashion Mathias Poledna makes visible complex formal relations between filmic narration and historic imagination. He concentrates on media specific formalisms such as repetition, movement, and reduction and, in doing so, he intensifies the aesthetic connotations of the depicted “story” within the process of media-based pictorial transformation. Polednas visual language is generated from the tension created by his idiosyncratic aesthetic condensation of design, art, and architecture. Moreover, he turns the project space of the film into a resonating space that opens up a new dimension.
Werner Feiersinger, Ohne Titel (Le Corbusier, Unité d’Habitation, Marseille), 2007
C-Print on AluDibond®, framedEdition 1/5
GK 631
Werner Feiersinger, Ohne Titel (Le Corbusier, Wand im Atelier, Paris), 2007
C-Print on AluDibond®, framed
Edition 1/5
“I’ve always enjoyed visiting the Unité in Marseille—that specific atmosphere of the building with the windy evenings and the sunsets on the flat roof, with the strangely shaped concrete objects which trace the contours of the mountains in the background. The assembling of all those different objects and elements on that roof creates an incredible, almost theatrical tension. My pictures are mostly about the sculptural and materiality as well as about everyday perception without idealization.” Werner Feiersinger
Untitled (Wise Corners), 2010
The design for the marble objects in Andreas Fogarasi’s installation Untitled (Wise Corners) is based on the conception of a “Final Projects” exhibition (2006) at the Schindler House—a location of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles; they were generated by a dialog with architectural elements of the presentation space, the material language of which Fogarasi quotes. These sculptures function as carriers for photographs that show works of architecture built for exhibition-related purposes. The installation’s form, concept and theme combine to produce a single whole embedded in a dense network of evoked associations.
The objects were shown and acquired in connection with the MAK exhibition ENVISIONED BUILDINGS. Reflecting Architecture in Contemporary Art Photography (7 December 2011–22 April 2012).
GK 626
Andreas Fogarasi
Untitled (Wise Corners), 2010
Ten marble (Rosso Levanto) sculptures with mounted photographs, ten photographs for the wall
Sculptures: 148.5 x 110 x 34 cm each, photographs: either 45 x 25 or 25 x 45 cm
Ohne Titel [Without Title], 1988/2010
In the presentation 1 sculpture 2 versions, Josef Dabernig analyzed the location of the artwork as an idea. In doing so, he used a modular system to focus the multifaceted interplay between the given symmetrical structure of the MAK Columned Main Hall and his rhythmic intervention. The 1988/2010 installation Ohne Titel, comprising 48 pieces of folded steel sheet, was presented sequentially in two variants which were each developed individually in order to conform to the specific spaces for which they were intended. It was originally realized as four-walled sheet metal channels modeled on the pre-formed duct elements used in climate control systems. Dabernig later on dismantled these constructions to save space, thereby producing a mobile and variable sculpture for which presentation within various spatial contexts became a part of the formal and substantive concept. In contrast to static constructions, the sculptural models thus created became understandable via sequences of possible scenographic interpretations of the space. To this end, a single spatial situation was dismantled into two outtakes and presented as a sequence of consecutive tableaux. In their respective logics, the various arrangements of the metal sheets provided interpretations of their relationships to architecture while simultaneously referring to the manifold ways of employing one and the same sculptural vocabulary.
GK 607
Josef Dabernig
Ohne Titel, 1988
Steel sheets, galvanized
48-part installation, variable dimensions
Previously installed on the roof of the Vienna Secession building, at Schabus’s studio (2003) and at the Villa Manin ¬– Centro d’arte contemporanea in Codroipo near Udine (2007/2008), Hans Schabus’s work Astronaut relates to specific contexts and special characteristics of spaces. In this respect, the sign can also be read as standing for the artist Hans Schabus himself and the way in which he works. It has repeatedly occupied and explored new sites in order to create new perceptive vantage points. In the case of the MAK Tower, the work has been placed in dialog with the inside of the exterior wall. The sign, just like the site itself, subverts the existing context and opens up new latitudes for action.
GK 595
Hans Schabus
Astronaut, 2003
Aluminum, wood, concrete building blocks, fluorescent lamps, wiring, various types of fastenings
Installation
220 x 10.000 x 100 cm
Since 1994, Jochen Traar has been formulating his art under the label Art Protects You. Conceived for the public realm, this work by Traar questions the urban experience. The group of letters making up “Art Protects You” is the core element of his Letter Triology, with which Jochen Traar traced and characterized the movement dynamics of Los Angeles (1996), Vienna (1997) and Venice (1999). As part of his MAK Schindler Scholarship in 1996, the red letters were mounted on the beds of 14 pickup trucks and sent on a drive through the heavy traffic of Los Angeles’s inner-city freeways.
GK 594
Jochen Traar
Art Protects You, 1996
Plywood, polyester, varnish, rollers; 14 letters
Installation
255 x 180 x 50 cm each
In Peter Friedl’s piece Neue Straßenverkehrsordnung, a moment of historical construction reappears in the artistic medium of neon lettering made to look like a child’s handwriting. This work refers to an early pamphlet of the German RAF (Red Army Faction), written in prison in 1971. Under the title of “On Armed Struggle in Europe”, the author outlines models and opportunities for revolutionary activity in various Western European cities and formulates a political program of sorts. The text was circulated under the cover name “New Rules of The Road,” a shrewd allusion to the power of existing structures and public order (the title being an ironic reference to the new traffic regulations that went into effect in Germany during that same year). Conceived as a loop, Friedl’s work transforms messages and communicates instances of recoding, effects which art is capable of having on historic moments and monuments.
GK 696
Peter Friedl
Neue Straßenverkehrsordnung, 2000
Neon tubes, wiring, transformers
Neon installation
215 x 700 x 6 cm
Mathias Poledna
GK 632Mathias Poledna
Double Old Fashion, 2009
16 mm, color, no sound, 20 min.
Edition 4/5 + 1AP
In his installation Double Old Fashion Mathias Poledna makes visible complex formal relations between filmic narration and historic imagination. He concentrates on media specific formalisms such as repetition, movement, and reduction and, in doing so, he intensifies the aesthetic connotations of the depicted “story” within the process of media-based pictorial transformation. Polednas visual language is generated from the tension created by his idiosyncratic aesthetic condensation of design, art, and architecture. Moreover, he turns the project space of the film into a resonating space that opens up a new dimension.
Werner Feiersinger
GK 630Werner Feiersinger, Ohne Titel (Le Corbusier, Unité d’Habitation, Marseille), 2007
C-Print on AluDibond®, framedEdition 1/5
GK 631
Werner Feiersinger, Ohne Titel (Le Corbusier, Wand im Atelier, Paris), 2007
C-Print on AluDibond®, framed
Edition 1/5
“I’ve always enjoyed visiting the Unité in Marseille—that specific atmosphere of the building with the windy evenings and the sunsets on the flat roof, with the strangely shaped concrete objects which trace the contours of the mountains in the background. The assembling of all those different objects and elements on that roof creates an incredible, almost theatrical tension. My pictures are mostly about the sculptural and materiality as well as about everyday perception without idealization.” Werner Feiersinger
Rudi Stanzel
Rise/Fall, 2010
This intervention was developed by Rudi Stanzel specifically for the MAK Tower as a reaction to the former Arenbergpark flak tower’s monolithic form. Intending to penetrate the structure of the tower in its verticality, Stanzel created a monumental and yet membrane-like suspended sculpture of individual aluminum chains for the tower’s central stairwell.
GK 319
Rudi Stanzel
Rise/Fall, 2010
Aluminum, anodized
Installation
3,400 x 90 x 45 cm
Andreas Fogarasi
Untitled (Wise Corners), 2010The design for the marble objects in Andreas Fogarasi’s installation Untitled (Wise Corners) is based on the conception of a “Final Projects” exhibition (2006) at the Schindler House—a location of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles; they were generated by a dialog with architectural elements of the presentation space, the material language of which Fogarasi quotes. These sculptures function as carriers for photographs that show works of architecture built for exhibition-related purposes. The installation’s form, concept and theme combine to produce a single whole embedded in a dense network of evoked associations.
The objects were shown and acquired in connection with the MAK exhibition ENVISIONED BUILDINGS. Reflecting Architecture in Contemporary Art Photography (7 December 2011–22 April 2012).
GK 626
Andreas Fogarasi
Untitled (Wise Corners), 2010
Ten marble (Rosso Levanto) sculptures with mounted photographs, ten photographs for the wall
Sculptures: 148.5 x 110 x 34 cm each, photographs: either 45 x 25 or 25 x 45 cm
Josef Dabernig
Ohne Titel [Without Title], 1988/2010In the presentation 1 sculpture 2 versions, Josef Dabernig analyzed the location of the artwork as an idea. In doing so, he used a modular system to focus the multifaceted interplay between the given symmetrical structure of the MAK Columned Main Hall and his rhythmic intervention. The 1988/2010 installation Ohne Titel, comprising 48 pieces of folded steel sheet, was presented sequentially in two variants which were each developed individually in order to conform to the specific spaces for which they were intended. It was originally realized as four-walled sheet metal channels modeled on the pre-formed duct elements used in climate control systems. Dabernig later on dismantled these constructions to save space, thereby producing a mobile and variable sculpture for which presentation within various spatial contexts became a part of the formal and substantive concept. In contrast to static constructions, the sculptural models thus created became understandable via sequences of possible scenographic interpretations of the space. To this end, a single spatial situation was dismantled into two outtakes and presented as a sequence of consecutive tableaux. In their respective logics, the various arrangements of the metal sheets provided interpretations of their relationships to architecture while simultaneously referring to the manifold ways of employing one and the same sculptural vocabulary.
GK 607
Josef Dabernig
Ohne Titel, 1988
Steel sheets, galvanized
48-part installation, variable dimensions
Hans Schabus
Astronaut, 2003Previously installed on the roof of the Vienna Secession building, at Schabus’s studio (2003) and at the Villa Manin ¬– Centro d’arte contemporanea in Codroipo near Udine (2007/2008), Hans Schabus’s work Astronaut relates to specific contexts and special characteristics of spaces. In this respect, the sign can also be read as standing for the artist Hans Schabus himself and the way in which he works. It has repeatedly occupied and explored new sites in order to create new perceptive vantage points. In the case of the MAK Tower, the work has been placed in dialog with the inside of the exterior wall. The sign, just like the site itself, subverts the existing context and opens up new latitudes for action.
GK 595
Hans Schabus
Astronaut, 2003
Aluminum, wood, concrete building blocks, fluorescent lamps, wiring, various types of fastenings
Installation
220 x 10.000 x 100 cm
Jochen Traar
Art Protects You, 1996Since 1994, Jochen Traar has been formulating his art under the label Art Protects You. Conceived for the public realm, this work by Traar questions the urban experience. The group of letters making up “Art Protects You” is the core element of his Letter Triology, with which Jochen Traar traced and characterized the movement dynamics of Los Angeles (1996), Vienna (1997) and Venice (1999). As part of his MAK Schindler Scholarship in 1996, the red letters were mounted on the beds of 14 pickup trucks and sent on a drive through the heavy traffic of Los Angeles’s inner-city freeways.
GK 594
Jochen Traar
Art Protects You, 1996
Plywood, polyester, varnish, rollers; 14 letters
Installation
255 x 180 x 50 cm each
Peter Friedl
Neue Straßenverkehrsordnung [New Rules of the Road], 2000In Peter Friedl’s piece Neue Straßenverkehrsordnung, a moment of historical construction reappears in the artistic medium of neon lettering made to look like a child’s handwriting. This work refers to an early pamphlet of the German RAF (Red Army Faction), written in prison in 1971. Under the title of “On Armed Struggle in Europe”, the author outlines models and opportunities for revolutionary activity in various Western European cities and formulates a political program of sorts. The text was circulated under the cover name “New Rules of The Road,” a shrewd allusion to the power of existing structures and public order (the title being an ironic reference to the new traffic regulations that went into effect in Germany during that same year). Conceived as a loop, Friedl’s work transforms messages and communicates instances of recoding, effects which art is capable of having on historic moments and monuments.
GK 696
Peter Friedl
Neue Straßenverkehrsordnung, 2000
Neon tubes, wiring, transformers
Neon installation
215 x 700 x 6 cm
