Gazes on Photo and Video Art from Austria
The House of Habsburg established the Austrian Empire in Central Europe. Its highly refined court culture, centered on Vienna, was the height of urban culture. With the decline of the empire, a new school of questioning was born that examined the profundity of the human body and mind. Its leading protagonists were Sigmund Freud and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Freudian psychoanalysis formulates and interprets patients' unconscious emotional turmoil through free association techniques and verbalization of imagination and dreams. Contepmorary artists represent this turmoil in the language of imagery. They visualize the unconscious emotional turmoil in individuals, their bodies and cities, and examine the psychic relationship between people and their bodies. They also echo this concept in photographic and video media using the naked self placed in public and architectural spaces. This view of the latent darkness and insanity hidden inside bodies and cities melts the boundary between the internal and external worlds, depicting our raw human form and desires. This approach shakes the human conscience to the bone.
<Related Event>
Opening Gallery Talk with the participating artists and the curators
Date: 2010/5/29 (Sat.) 16:00-18:00 (Japanese-English Translation, No Booking Required)