With her film and photo installations, Laura Schawelka creates a captivating remix combining excerpts of our mediatized present. In the process of perpetually layering the virtual and the analog, she generates hybrids oscillating between moving and still image, between digital coolness and tactile sensuality, between commodity fetishism and food porn―a world so oddly satisfying one can hardly resist.
In her latest works, developed during her Q21-Artist-in-Residence in Vienna, the artist explores the “display,” analyzes the relation between interieur and exterieur (spaces) and questions passed on classifications of motifs, visual content and image carrier. The word “display” can be deduced from Latin (displicare: unfold): in Schawelka’s works shop windows and facades, but also flowers and materials evolve. After residencies in Los Angeles und Paris, she now focuses on Vienna’s retail architecture and shops: From Adolf Loos, who applied psychoanalytical knowledge in his design of the book shop front of Manz, to Hans Hollein’s retail stores for Marius Retti and Christa Metek, which are constructed as architectural images, Schawelka investigates the visual language of architecture―calculated for psychological effectiveness―and its relation to photography.

Midissage 23.9.2020| 18:00 | EIKON Showroom MuseumsQuartier Wien