Stinkfish. Material Borders

07.06.2018 - 28.07.2018

Hilger NEXT, Wien / Österreich

The borders we learn to read on a map are imaginary lines that tell stories of power and war. They are the reflection of a world in crisis, where walls and barbed wire divide not only landscapes but families, values, histories, and realities. The real borders - rivers, oceans, mountains, deserts - should be crossed freely without the need for checkpoints, passports, and above all without prejudices and suspicions, violence and discrimination.

Materials Borders is composed of a series of works that establish a parallel between those imaginary lines and the real borders - both of which cannot be crossed by all - by using portraits of anonymous people who were photographed in one place in the world and then painted in another distant location.... A girl from Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam) in the mountains of Honduras a mother from Shanghai (China), with her son in her arms, in an alley in Marseille (France) a small girl from Bogota (Colombia) in the streets of Puebla (Mexico) a Russian father in Moscow with his daughter on his shoulders on a building in Vienna (Austria).
Using salvaged objects - doors, windows, tables, lamps, traffic signs - found on the streets, in attics, and at second-hand stores, Stinkfish has created assemblages. The portraits, executed with stencils and freehand spray paint strokes, overlap the adjoining and intertwining material borders, crossing from one place to another.

[Quelle: https://www.hilger.at/ ]