LUISA KASALICKY

The installation-based situation which the visitor encounters on entering the Gallery’s first room can also be understood as the elaboration of a syntax within an exhibition context. Here Kasalicky’s studio wall replicated on a scale of 1:1 by a decorative painter serves as a polychromatic backdrop with autonomous work qualities, its setting providing the Viennese artist with an environment in which to arrange and correlate her various works. Hanging here, for instance, are the large-format canvases from the sensitive series of works entitled ‘Synonym for Group...’ that open up a visual grammar echoed elsewhere in fully sculptural form with the montage sculpture Exlibris - für Alle! The anthropomorphic-mechanical impressions of a female and a male body on imitation leather _(Imago)–_an explicit reference by Kasalicky to a work by Austrian artist Otto Eder–resonate thematically with the sgraffito frieze on the true-to-scale studio wall where profile views of man and woman diverge in opposite directions as tension-charged vectors. Alongside photographic works, these works are complemented in the next exhibition rooms by silhouetted cut-outs that evoke the non conformist attitudes of punk, through the use of metal inlays and a leather look. Similarly, the ‘icon’ from an earlier sculpture by the artist has been isolated and developed as an autonomous body into oversized gems positioned on the gallery floor.

Thus, media-based links are created with a narrative arrangement which, in its modular constellation, generates an aesthetic value-added that is far more than the mere sum of its parts. Since the late 2000s Kasalicky has been deploying invented forms in various media to playfully re-invent them in modified configurations and transfer them to new contexts as a visual grammar. In keeping with this principle, the current exhibition creates a theatrical reference system that extends beyond the ambit of each individual work and invites the visitor to cast a comparative gaze. The interaction between the works and her ‘icons’ broadens the horizon of interpretation and underscores the process-based qualities of Kasalicky’s complex imagery.

LUISA KASALICKY, born in Prague in 1974; lives and works in Vienna. 1998-2004 Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. 2012 State Scholarship; 2013 Otto Mauer Prize. 2018 ISCP, New York Studio Scholarship Exhibitions (selected): Talking studios, Kunstraum Engländerbau, Vaduz; ISCP, International Studio & Curatorial Program: Leaps and Bounds, New York City; Sensations / Closer to the People, Kunstverein Schattendorf; Synonym for Group 5, Polansky Gallery, Prague; Invitrospektive, Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna; Abstrakt Spatial. Malerei im Raum. Kunsthalle Krems; Intro: desiderio, Lentos, Museum der Stadt Linz, Linz; Frontispiz: Juxtaposition, Kunstraum Burgkapelle, Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten, Klagenfurt; Luxury goods, Haus der Kunst, Galerie G99, Brno; Wiener Glut, Neue Kunst aus Wien und Düsseldorf, KIT Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf; en suite, BAWAG Contemporary, Vienna.

Press release courtesy Galerie Nächt St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder. Text: Daniel Brezina.