Sašo Sedlaček, Ö-U IMMOBILIEN, Secession, 2008, Installation shot: Pez Hejduk


As the third and final project in the series FOOTNOTES, Slovenian artist Sašo Sedlaček is presenting a new site-specific project in the Secession's display case. There are always niches in city space, in services, laws or even the outer space that people have forgotten or have never thought about. These niches are exactly what Sašo Sedlaček looks for. His primary interest seems to be things that people overlook and the ways they can be made useful once again. He sends home-made beggar robots to shopping malls where human begging is prohibited and enchants people with his creature (BEGGAR 0.0, 2006); he creates and advertises a recycling laboratory kit for paper brick production (NO LEGO, 2005) and demonstrates its possible tactical use by building a wall in front of a shopping mall with bricks made of direct advertising flyers (JUST DO IT!, 2003).



Sašo Sedlaček, Ö-U IMMOBILIEN, Secession 2008


One might say that Sedlaček's works result from a subversive recycling of scientific, legal or technological facts, employing DIY (do-it-yourself) and collaborative methods. Considering discarded space and European geopolitics, his interest has recently turned toward certain historically rich and rather ambivalent national, territorial and cultural relations in Central Europe and toward personal strategies of rethinking, revitalizing or overwriting these.

As he polemically wrote:
"Probably every European nation carries a territory in its memory, which sometime in the past extended well beyond its present-day borders. From a nationalistic point of view, present territorial maps seem like amputees. However, with new integrations in today's post-Cold War world order, it seems that many territorial maps are being redrawn again. This is actually an opportunity for reestablishment of some historical economic and cultural environments that were once successful, like the Austro -Hungarian Empire - the major historical and cultural reference for every Central European nation. Austria is showing us by way of its recent economic and cultural expansion into the territories that were only a few years ago still behind the iron curtain, that such concepts are not only a thing of the past. Today, there is no need anymore to create new countries or officially move the borders in Europe; these can be moved simply from one apartment to another. Territory is not only an abstract notion. At a personal level, it is above all a piece of real estate: an individual's territory is his house or apartment."

Accordingly, Sedlaček's project is a promotion of the real estate trade. Similarly to his earlier projects, he draws attention to hidden places and strategies that can be key to future developments in the region. At the same time, he finds a way to promote his own art - is it a singular artistic move, or can this gesture be seen as representing a core strategy that leads to mutual benefit in this ambiguous situation?

Ö-U Immobilien employs a sort of urban mimicry when appearing as an advertisement board in the display case. Addressing directly the capital of Austria, this final project in the series FOOTNOTES once again articulates critical comments on the predicaments of life in the city, focusing on individual aspects of urban and regional development in a personal and non-spectacular way - in small print, so to speak.

(Hajnalka Somogyi)

* Quotation and more info: www.sasosedlacek.com


SASO SEDLAČEK, born 1974 in Ljubljana, lives and works in Ljubljana.

SOLO SHOWS (Selection): 2008 Ö-U Immobilien, Secession, Vienna; Lost Territories, Mala galerija, Ljubljana; 2007 Infocalypse Now, Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana; Rent-a-robot, P74 Gallery, Ljubljana; Urban-Woodenware wending machine, Mikova hisa, Ribnica; Recycling strategies, lju cosinus brx gallery, Brussels; 2006 Beggar (robot for materially deprived), Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana; 2005 Copy China!, Likovni Salon, Celje; 2004 Loop, Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana; 2003 Just do it!, Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana; 2001 Biotope Condition, Kapelica Gallery, Ljubljana.

GROUP SHOWS (Selection): 2007 Land(e)scape, Künstlerhaus Graz; Suitcase Illuminated #5 Paris stop, Musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Paris; Nit/Thread, Koroska Gallery of Fine Arts, Slovenj Gradec; Suitcase Illuminated #5 On Parallel Economy, P74 Gallery, Ljubljana; 2006 Device Art, Rx Gallery, San Francisco; Young Visual Artist Award, Pristina; ISCP Open studio, New York; II.Ogaki Biennale, Ogaki; Cultural Typhoon, Tokyo; 2005 Pretty Dirty, Skuc Gallery, Ljubljana; Break 2.3, Grad Kodeljevo, Ljubljana; 2004 Loop Pavilion, Un desigh di carta, Feltre; 2003 Friendly fire, Forum Stadtpark, Graz.


HAJNALKA SOMOGYI is an art historian and independent curator. Between April 2001 and June 2006, she ran the international exhibition program of the exhibition space Trafo Gallery of Trafo-House of Contemporary Arts. She is the founder of DINAMO Workshop and of Impex-Contemporary Art Provider, two independent art initiatives in Budapest. In 2006, she was a curator inresidence at Art in General in New York City, in the framework of the residency program of CEC Artslink. Currently, she is enrolled in the Curatorial Studies Program at Bard College, NY.


The exhibitions are realized through support of:
Erste Bank – Partner of the Secession
Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur
Wien Kultur
Friends of the Secession



For further information and photographic material please contact:

Tamara Schwarzmayr
Secession, Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession
Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna
Tel: +43-1-5875307-21, Fax: +43-1-5875307-34
presse@secession.at