Anita Leisz, Secession 2000
 

Idiosyncrasy and ambivalence characterize the work of Anita Leisz, which eschews any classification according to the classical canon of artistic techniques. For instance, she uses a seemingly clearly defined medium such as the comic so to carry out labyrinthine excursuses located between reality and fiction. For the project she has realized in the Secession, a model of the skeleton of a hand is on view in the Main Hall, while the bones of the forearm are in the Gallery and short texts inscribed on the wall offer cues for making up stories either based the artist's own experiences or those of the visitors.

 

Anita Leisz, Florian Pumhösl, Secession 2000
 
 
Conceptually speaking, these works further develop themes that have occupied the artist over the past few years. Her "Sprechblasenplakate", which - amongst other things - were attached to large sized Viennese billboards in 1995, do not narrate any particular story. They invite passers-by as empty spaces to write their own subject matter; reactions to the partially covered advertising and other short graffiti.
 
For the comic figure in "Den Rest", which was begun around the same time, she created a life in a borderland, where the inconsistent and open plots serve to suddenly illuminate instead of completely revealing his fate. The stage-like and oversized skeleton parts in the Secession (in front of which a visit to the exhibition can turn into a performance) are on the one hand a continuation of her exhibition in the Viennese Krobath & Wimmer Gallery; on the other hand closed simple sentences and fragments of sentences are used both here and there to intimate general experiences without being bound to any particular figure. Thus the texts function as a base to allow access to possible situations between reality and fiction..
 
 

Anita Leisz, Florian Pumhösl, Secession 2000

 
In this way Anita Leisz dissolves the didactic interrelationships in art - text functions alongside the artistic object as an equal entity, instead of being subordinated to it as an interpretation or title. The same applies to the catalogue: Anita Leisz reacts to the texts of the authors in her work just as much as they find the starting point for their texts in the work of the artist. This allows the visitors' aptitude to remember and supplement to be directly addressed: they reassemble the spatially separated parts of the skeleton and establish the relationship between the different text forms and the sculptural work. Thus interpretation becomes a process without any final results and cannot be limited, neither in space nor in time.
 

PUBLICATION

ANITA LEISZ 24 pages, 10 colored illustrations, 3 b/w photos authors: Matthias Herrmann, Jörn Schafaff, Andreas Spiegl Secession 2000, ISBN 3-901926-23-2 ___________________ available in the shop

 
 

Anita Leisz, Installation, 1999, Galerie Krobath Wimmer, Photo: Jens Preusse
 
Anita Leisz, who was born in 1973 in Leoben, now lives in Vienna.
Exhibitions include: 1999 at Krobath & Wimmer Gallery, Vienna; Studiocity II, Kunstverein Wolfsburg; Studiocity I, Vienna; Den Rest - Die letzten Ergebnisse, Kunstverein Ludwigsburg; Time Out, Kunstverein Nuremberg; Tunnel Vision, Depot Vienna.
 
 

FLORIAN PUMHÖSL

EXHIBITION PROGRAM 2000

 
 
 
For further information and photographic material please contact:
 
Pia Leydolt
Secession, Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession
Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna
Tel: +43-1-5875307-21, Fax: +43-1-5875307-34
presse@secession.at