as part of FOTO WIEN 2023 and Independent Space Index Festival 2023
Opening: Thursday, 1 June, 4–8 p.m.
Exhibition space: Bildraum 01, Strauchgasse 2, 1010 Vienna
Opening speech: Ruth Horak
Book presentation: Dive in! With Special Summer Drinks (as part of the Independent Space Index Festival): Saturday, 3 June, 5 p.m.
Finissage and concert: Friday 30 June from 5 p.m.
The artist is present and guides through the exhibition.
19.30 concert: The Band Futurelove Sibanda & Friends will create a groovy atmosphere with their music, which is a mixture of soul, jazz, Afro beats and Latin beats!
Opening hours Bildraum 01 (until 30 June): Tu–Fr 1–6 p.m, Sa 11 a.m–3 p.m.
5–10 September 2023 PARALLEL VIENNA:
Participation of FOTOGALERIE WIEN with a solo presentation of Laura Sperl.
We would like to thank Bildraum 01 for the cooperation and excellent collaboration.
Since 2010 the FOTOGALERIE WIEN has put on an annual solo exhibition showcasing the work of a young, upcoming artist. This series of exhibitions, SOLO, functions as a platform and springboard for artists who are at the beginning of their career but who already have an extensive body of work that we want to present to a wider public. The aim is to achieve a sustainable level of public presence for the chosen artist and includes helping to organize cooperations and touring shows. We are pleased to present the artist Laura Sperl at Bildraum 01 in Vienna for SOLO XIV.
The most recent works by Laura Sperl are non-representational and yet they carry definite traces of something sprayed, that ran, and they have velvety surfaces, torn photo-paper edges and large expanses of blue and rust red. Grains of sand inspire one to picture the conditions under which they were created on Caribbean beaches. Covered by sea water and by sand-filled plastic sheets they were left exposed to the sun. Without being fixed they were stored in light-proof packing and start to darken immediately when they are re-exposed to light.
They not only appeal to the visual senses but touch on our tactile sensibilities, eliciting a desire to know more about the process of creation. It is not the first time that Laura Sperl draws her public’s attention to the process. She has repeatedly performed the photograph, sometimes for a lone camera or a limited number of spectators. At other times, such as Performancebelichtung [Performance Exposure] 2022 in the Photo Cluster space, explicitly for a public where the focus was on the (short) act of exposure and the (long) act of development.
Cyanotypes, whether worn by the artist on her body as she jumps off the Georg-Danzer-Steg [bridge] or drawn by Port Louis sand and floating above the ground like a sail, are also part of her repertoire – whatever comes in contact with the material leaves an impression. It is the most direct way of making a photographic exposure, even if it is only a shadow or moonlight that registers on the paper. A particularly fascinating method led to solar exposures: using a solar cell, sunlight is stored and transported thousands of kilometres and, weeks after charging, it is loosely wrapped in photo paper in a darkroom in Vienna and used in an exposure.
“I’m interested in transitions: the development from one moment to the next, from one material to an another, … from one movement to the ensuing one,” from the invisible to the visible and back again. (Ruth Horak)