Artists | Benjamin Eichhorn, Maximilian Hochstätter, Mahir Jahmal, Tamara Rametsteiner, Sira-Zoé Schmid, Rudolf Strobl, Sophie Thun, Christina Werner, Antoinette Zwirchmayr
Date | November 16 – 29, 2014
Location | Offspace Spenglerei, Vienna

During the Eyes On – Month of Photography Vienna, a former metalworking shop in Vienna’s 15th district is transformed into an exhibition venue for contemporary photographic art. With its unfinished walls, the building—which formerly also housed a cooperage, a locksmith’s shop, and a pigeon-breeding station—could not be more different from the White Cube or the con- temporary industrial chic, and it is a challenging site for artists and curators in several regards. It demands close engagement with the architecture and its past and vestigial present-day uses as a production facility. The hybrid quality of the space can be compared to the position staked out by artists who see themselves not as photographers strictly speaking but rather as visual artists who work with photography among other media. This approach is evident in the works on display in the exhibition, whose most immediately visible common denominator is the engagement with space and the concrete exhibition space in particular. Present within the medium only in the form of a trompe-l’oeil, the photographic space is expanded by installation and sculptural art. On the one hand, space-within-a-space situations result, or the works blend in almost seamlessly with the given architectural context. On the other hand, some of them suggest material qualities that contrast strongly with the venue. All pieces, meanwhile, also interrogate and work with the photographic medium on the levels of form as well as content.

Co-Curator: Lisa Pehnelt

Accompanying the exhibition a catalogue was published (self-published).