Marlene Maier & Olena Newkryta: Everything a Hand Can’t Take

Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2017Images that reflect something of our surrounding reality tell and create stories in the minds of their viewers. However, what is based on real documents or events? What mechanisms hide behind images and their production today?

This year’s Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2017 winners Marlene Maier (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) and Olena Newkryta (University of Applied Arts Vienna) are interested in the logics of cinematic image production. Framings that are used in picture production – that usually remain unnoticed or invisible – are made perceptible in their multi-part installations. The conceptual relationship between the works of the two graduates led to the joint exhibition title Everything a Hand Can't Take. In her 3-channel video installation Food only exists on pictures, Marlene Maier finds a visual “language” for the blurring and absence resulting from the opaque merging of technological and techno-political processes. In her multimedia installation folding unfolding refolding Olena Newkryta creates several possibilities for viewing the “real” in order to simultaneously create a “visual language of the touch” that allows a connection between haptic and visual perception.

A project of Kunsthalle Wien in cooperation with the University of Applied Arts Vienna and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, supported by HS Art Service and Deko Trend GmbH.

Curator: Lucas Gehrmann