An “experimental monograph” (conceived by Heimo Zobernig) which offers a sidelong journey through the multi-facetted body of
workmade by the Austrian artist since more than 30 years, which also offers a novel line of thinking about the layout of an artwork, and gathers a selection of “historical” texts and new commissioned essays.
This book, conceived as an “experimental monograph”, offers a sidelong journey through the multi-facetted body of
workmade by the Austrian artist Heimo Zobernig, from his earliest pieces
which appeared in the late 1970s to his most recent works, by bringing together a number of projects
selected by the artist around notions of theatricality and display.
For some thirty years, publications have been an essential factor in his
art praxis. Just like exhibition venues, Zobernig sees the printed medium
as a site for questioning production standards and representational conventions through a system
of displacements and shifts.
The book also offers a novel line of thinking about the layout of an artwork.
The artist decided to hand the entire job of designing this
book over to the graphic designers Experimental Jetset. Interacting with the
artist's editorial praxis, they presents the works in chronological order, but with a quite specific visual treatment under the form of an evolving chromatic sequencing, introducing a cinematic effect – a kind of visual and philological emanation
of the chronology.
The book also gathers a selection of “historical” texts (Helmut
Draxler, Klemens Gruber, Monika Meister, Juliane Rebentisch, Peter Weibel, Heimo Zobernig) and new essays, specifically written about the issues of
theatricality and display (Yann Chateigné Tytelman, Catherine Chevalier,
Moritz Küng, Diletta Mansella).
Published on the occasion of the Heimo Zobernig exhibition at CAPC, Bordeaux, from May to August 2009.
Heimo Zobernig (born 1958 in Mauthen, Austria, lives and works in Vienna) has been viewed as a key figure on the Austrian art scene since the early 1980s. His oeuvre explores themes of minimalism, the historical loading of the opposing pair of "figurativeness vs. abstraction," and the problem as to what art is or can be—its outward form and function.
Edited by Heimo Zobernig, Catherine Chevalier, Charlotte Laubard.
Texts by Yann Chateigné Tytelman,
Catherine Chevalier,
Helmut Draxler,
Klemens Gruber,
Moritz Küng,
Charlotte Laubard,
Diletta Mansella,
Monika Meister, Juliane Rebentisch,
Peter Weibel,
Heimo Zobernig.
