Opening and catalogue presentation:
Monday, 20 October 2025, 7 pm.
Opening speech: Ruth Horak
In cooperation with VIENNA ART WEEK:
Artist Talk with Nela Eggenberger: Friday, 7 November, 6 pm.
Guided Gallery tour: Saturday, 8 November, 12–1.30 pm.
WERKSCHAU XXX is the continuation of the annual exhibition series of FOTOGALERIE WIEN, in which contemporary artists are presented who have significantly contributed to the development of art photography and the new media in Austria. To date there has been a cross section of work by Jana Wisniewski, Manfred Willmann, VALIE EXPORT, Leo Kandl, Elfriede Mejchar, Heinz Cibulka, Renate Bertlmann, Josef Wais, Horáková + Maurer, Gottfried Bechtold, Friedl Kubelka, Branko Lenart, INTAKT – Die Pionierinnen (Renate Bertlmann, Moucle Blackout, Linda Christanell, Lotte Hendrich-Hassmann, Karin Mack, Margot Pilz, Jana Wisniewski), Inge Dick, Lisl Ponger, Hans Kupelwieser, Robert Zahornicky, Ingeborg Strobl, Michael Mauracher, PRINZGAU/podgorschek, Maria Hahnenkamp, Robert F. Hammerstiel, Sabine Bitter & Helmut Weber, Michaela Moscow, Günther Selichar, Heidi Harsieber, Christian Wachter, Andrea van der Straeten and Karl-Heinz Klopf.
We are delighted to present the Vienna-based artist SIGRID KURZ for our 30th WERKSCHAU ANNIVERSARY.
Sigrid Kurz’s works bear the imprint of the transformation that artistic practice underwent at the end of the twentieth century when artists radically expanded their fields of activity, overturned traditional borders between work and art industry, placed reliance on artistic research and became “discursive”. Even in the earliest photographic series she observes these “defining parameters of institutional art” (Astrid Wege), the spheres of activity, the role models, the conditions of work and representation or the politically charged spaces of the galleries. A single photograph from 1991 stands as a metaphor for the game, often clouded in secrecy, which is played out on the fields of art. A SPIELFELD located in an urban environment has been prepared for potential players. But before they can gain entrance they must prove that they know the official and unofficial rules and their skill.
Sigrid Kurz is familiar with all the rules and, as an astute observer, she consumes the changing and increasingly immersive offerings of art institutions. She meticulously explored the cities, combed through the playing fields of art and cinema, observed both formal and social changes, registered attitudes embedded in actions or understatements and authentically documented conditions and sensitivities. She always mentally includes her own persona and moves on the playing field and that includes her curiosity about the spectators she has been directly addressing and challenging to take a position since 1998 with the series, FRAGEN.
From 2014 on, she has been reacting to the fact that the expectations relating to art presentation have changed: instead of being static and representational it must now be inflected with performative, processual and interactive forms. In EXPERIMENTAL SETS Kurz turns the image of the exhibition space on its head with a single, simple gesture, turning the ceiling lights into the spotlights. In this way she directs the creations of futuristic illuminated platforms on which transformations of all kinds can happen. Since 2021, she has taken up yet another new perspective in the series CLOSE UP where she is palpably present as observer and photographer. Above all, she expresses her present through the movement of her body.
Sigrid Kurz puts herself and us on the playing fields of art, here and now with a backwards glance into history too. The palindrome “here we are we here” is both statement and question and, last but not least, an indication of the competitive atmosphere that prevails on the playing fields of art.
(Ruth Horak)