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| Roman Ondák 19 January – 4 March 2007 |
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Opening Introduction to the exhibition by Dr. Friedrich Meschede, DAAD Artists-in-Residence Programme Berlin |
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Roman Ondák
is
internationally one of the most sought after artists of his generation.
In summer 2006 he presented a large installation at the Tate Modern
London, and, in the same year, participated in the renowned
São
Paulo Biennale. His exhibition at the Galerie im Taxispalais is his
first solo show at an Austrian art institution. In shifts that are hardly perceptible Roman Ondák moves everyday situations into an exhibition context to subtly capture different types of social behaviour, wishes, ideas or fantasies. He always incorporates a temporal aspect by merging past, present and future. In differently conceptualised situations, tasks or instructions, he makes the audience or people from the outside, acquaintances, also kids, workers from a factory, as well as a politician to whom he writes a letter, the co-producers of his works. “Ondák’s works can often be readable even if they are not recognised as works of art. Even more, he sometimes uses art as a means to sharpen our attention to every-day life and to situations in it that can often be readable, metaphorical and poetic too.“ (Igor Zabel) In the series Futuropolis (2006) Ondák invited his friends, among them many artists, and his relatives to draw images of their vision of a megalopolis of the future. In Casting Antinomads (2000/2006) he proceeds with his work called Antinomads (2000). In Antinomads he had asked acquaintances whether they consider themselves more as “nomads“ or as “antinomads“. He then photographed the latter in different poses in their domestic environment. From these various motifs he finally chose one from each person and produced a series of 12 postcards that were presented in an exhibition context. Six years later he brings the “Antinomads” into play again: He now uses all the photos he had shot in 2000 and presents them as an extensive, structurally displayed series. All the “antinomads” are now – in a time shift – appearing as if they had participated in a casting. On the other hand, the artist makes again use of the Antinomads-postcards and asks his friends abroad to send such a postcard to his address in Bratislava with a short hand-written text. This series of postcards presented as an album together with the series of photos on the wall create a complex spatial-temporal loop – not just for the persons portrayed, but also for the artist and his environment. The video Resistance (2006) shows a performance which took place “between the lines“, as it were, at a public event. Ondák had asked several people wearing shoes with shoe laces to simply leave them open and to move through the crowd dragging them – an action that went largely unnoticed. The Stray Man (video, 2006) documents a man’s daily walk when suddenly his attention was attracted by large windows of a local public building. Perhaps for his irresolution or maybe obsession he kept wandering around and from time to time gazed through the windows into the inside of the building. Whereas these two performances were initiated and staged directly by the artist’s actors, there are also works which have an indirect performative effect on the viewer, as for instance More Silent Than Ever (2006), where a sign indicates an hidden eavesdropping device in a completely empty staircase. In addition to the cited pieces, Roman Ondák will show a series of further video work and photographic pieces at the Galerie im Taxispalais, along with a big installation created specifically for the inner courtyard of the Galerie entitled Here or Elsewhere (2006). The works Casting Antinomads (2000/2006) and Futuropolis (2006) were produced by the Galerie Martin Janda together with the Galerie im Taxispalais and shown at the São Paulo Biennale. Roman Ondák was born in Žilina, Slovakia in 1966. He lives and works in Bratislava. |
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| Catalogue Roman Ondák Ed. Silvia Eiblmayr, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck; Maria Hlavajova, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst Utrecht Contributions by Jessica Morgan and Jan Verwoert (German/English) Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne 2007 156 pp., app. 176 ill. € 22,- ISBN: 978-3-86560-332-6 Thanks to Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna |
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