ART CITIES:Vienna-Pin-Jenni Tischer

 In Pin the exhibition of Jenni Tischer’s winner of the15th Baloise Art Prize , the vocabulary of minimalist sculpture comes up against the history and practice of textile work. Tischer’s exhibition lays out a space between pins (needles) and PINs (personal identification numbers), giving rise to thought both on the memory of materials and on the encoding of identity.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Mumok Museum Archive, Jenni Tischer & Krobath Vienna/Berlin

Crucial to the design of the three-dimensional works created the artist is the combination of material, colour, form and text. The artist incorporates references to modernism into the context of her own works, while undermining them at the same time. Her installations resemble stage sets, in which a wealth of objects seem to be telling stories, an impression contradicted by the fact that they preclude interpretation. Reminiscent of unrolled scrolls, situation-adaptable and colored “fabric pedestals” cut across the room. Interlocking walls and floor, they display a number of sculptures: open cubes that feature “Viennese netting” like Thonet chairs, and objects whose materiality or form allude to weaving frames and pin cushions. Tischer’s arrangement leaves the question open as to what is part of the display and what is an art work. Instead, display elements such as pedestals or frames form an integral part of the narrative. Political concerns such as authorship, production and feminism resonate in Tischer‘s works, specifically in her choice of technique. She often exploits typically feminine activities like embroidery, sewing or weaving, which she transports into the context of art with great subtlety. Tischer addresses fundamental questions: as to the definition of media and the information they can transmit as to how work processes are inscribed in materials and surfaces; and also why textiles are now again gaining increasing significance as a field of discourse and practice in our so thoroughly digital world. Textile is a media more and more used by artists to record their own memories and stories, culmination of local culture.

Info: Curating: Manuela Ammer, mumok, Museumsplatz 1, Wien, Duration:18/10/14-1/2/15, Days & Hours: Mon: 14:00-19:00, Tue-Sat: 10:00–19:00 except Thu: 10:00–21:00, www.mumok.at