Christian Egger.Thisness, Glass Glue, Thatness! (futura nostalgica utopica)

11.05.2023 - 2023

Charim Schleifmühlgasse, Wien / Österreich

The exhibition "Thisness, Glass Glue, Thatness! (futura nostalgica utopica)" by the Vienna-based artist and author Christian Egger integrates, among other things, a largely new series of text works that reflect different search movements and research and are presented in small, framed formats. The inscriptions and markings are on mirror backs and illustrate a wide field of knowledge with bits of information on literature, astrology, geography, materials and colors. These result in random chains of apparent connection and levels of notation that expand and open up the algorithms of today's Internet queries.... Despite this central work, other allegorical processes and ways of thinking determine what is happening in the exhibition. In a sculptural floor collage, Egger reveals possible security measures to protect against theft of designer shoes by weighing them down with a heavy bicycle chain. Furthermore, an audio track of a voice in English played in the rooms provides links and references within the text to works appearing in the exhibition, including the acoustic work itself. Quote: "It is intended to break with this consensus that we are all seeing the same exhibition and allow the conception of hypothetical possible parallel exhibitions: in which, for example, works are designated by what they are not, where time runs backwards and the works of art move further and further away the closer you get to them.” This creates irritations of perception, which appear to be contradictory to the mediation tendencies of the audio piece and their narrative intention. Once again, the artist supplements the display scenario with the medium of language in order to make the exhibition conceptually tangible and, in an exhibition-related reflection, to constantly negotiate and create meaning.

[Quelle: Einladung]