Skip to content

Work by Uli Aigner
Nucleus of the state

to
  • Exhibition view, Work by Uli Aigner. Nucleus of the state, 2004-2005
  • Exhibition view, Work by Uli Aigner. Nucleus of the state, 2004-2005
  • Exhibition view, Work by Uli Aigner. Nucleus of the state, 2004-2005

The self, others, family, present, wishes, art, security, esposedness, the personal, the political, the poetic – in her show at Lentos, Austrian artist Uli Aigner brings together the themes running through her work with a remarkable wealth of media and materials, in a room-related installation of large-scale drawings combined with a new series of objects. You enter the room, and it shimmers in front of you – form and colour. Decoding topic and meaning can be approached iconographically.

What is being depicted? The drawings show a series of configuations of a woman, man and three children – a family, in fact. The objects are pieces of furniture – things to sit on, lie on. Tools that transform people from their usual state of haste into repose, relaxation, comtemplation, concentration on exchanges with others or oneself. But this is no homecoming” here. The feeling of disorientation persists. The drawings with their confusing spatial relationships, their cut-and-paste organisation of motifs in different media, generate a whirlpool, a vortex that cannot be centred and balanced-around any focal point. The outlines of the furniture in a uniform garish bright yellow dissolve before the eyes like powder paints in water and merge with the air, the walls and the briskly hatched surfaces on the paper. That is a leitmotif – borders are illusions. There are no clear divisions, either between the constructed things and the existing room, the public and the private realms, or art and life. In Metanoia (1995), a digitally animated video, Uli Aigner has imagined a woman who, against her will, melts on every contact with things and adopts their shape.

Boundless identification/​infection. Nucleus of the State: I am the warrior of God, I am me-as‑a child, I am everything I have com into contact with.

The family is the nucleus of the state, the artist ist the nucleus of the museum. Neither can escape the responsibility they have to carry for their own deeds and own longings. The effect and the consequences can never be under-estimated.

A survey of Uli Aigner´s work will be published by edition selene (Vienna) as an artist book, as well as lentos booklet 4 accompanying the exhibition.

Stella Rollig

Video

*Please understand that we offer our video production in German language only.

Lentos 10 Shorts: Uli Aigner

This website uses cookies. Learn more