BROKEN BEAUTY
A group exhibition, set up by me and my friends:
Jennifer Hofer (fakesodadesign.tumblr.com),
David Schermann (https://www.behance.net/dsphotography),
& Christoph Uglarik.
The exhibition ran from Aug. 18th to Aug. 25th in Tabakfabrik Linz (UpperAustria) and showed Photography, Paintings and Mixed Media works.
The exhibition start was accompanied by a big Vernissage, which could not have been possible without our family, friends, and the generous sponsorship of:
The exhibition start was accompanied by a big Vernissage, which could not have been possible without our family, friends, and the generous sponsorship of:
Schloss Eggenberg Beer
(https://www.facebook.com/BrauereiSchlossEggenberg)
echtleinwand.at
(who sponsored the photography prints to some parts)
Der Heurige Dinhof Neusiedl
(https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dinhof-Heuriger/230204110333014)
So let's start with an idea...
Earlier this year I had the idea to make an exhibition. I contacted David Schermann about it, as I already had the pleasure to join him on a group exhibition last year, and love to work with him. Seeing David's excitment about it I then talked with Christoph Uglarik, who is one of my closest friends and who is always taking pictures of my works while I'm out and spraypainting the world. The last addition of our group came with Jennifer Hofer, an amazing photographer, David and I knew through her fantastic work.
We all met up in Vienna, brainstorming -drinking selfmade Vodka at a cool bar- which topics we would love to collaborate on and what the overall topic of the exhibtion could be.
We all love broken things, unconventional beauty, stuff that is damaged, has a history, has scars, basically everything that is NOT perfect and stuff that would be able to tell a great story.
I always loved damaged walls and damaged paper to draw on with half empty markers that are a struggle to draw with. If I can choose I always buy a used book over a new one, because I just love the astethics of it being used.
So long story short, we had a topic, so I started with sketches, that were turned into these...
In the middle of the quite hectic progress, as our time schedule was pretty limited, my dear friend and spraypainting rascal JAVER visited me from Spain.
We went out & during the short stay we rocked Vienna, spraypainting some small, fast and dirty pieces on the Danube Canal.
Later at home, we worked on a collaboration, which later became a limited edition postcard we sold at the exhibition. The exhibition was in Linz so JAVER and I did what we do best, I illustrrated Linz and a typical tram and he bombed it.
I scanned in the illustration and further worked on it digitally.
In the meantime David was busy getting the photography prints done and having everybody keep the deadline.
Christoph Schwarzenegger spreading some invitations I made.
All through the process I met up with the friendly and very supporting people from
Tabakfabrik Linz
(https://www.facebook.com/tabakfabriklinz)
and made a great deal about the exhibition place.
We contacted sponsors, and here you see the great people from
Schloss Eggenberg Beer
bringing us a bar for the Vernissage (we got the beer ice cold on the day of the private view)
When the day of the private view came, we all had lots of stress. In the morning we were invited to talk in the regional radio station to promote the exhibition, we still had to hang all pieces and also a TV station came by to do interviews.
The empty space before
Before hanging...
A small part of the exhibtion - finished hanging.
To the left - Christoph's stuff
Middle - mine
To the right - part of Jenny's photos
After a quick shower we all arrived minutes before the lovely people of LT1 (TV station) came to do their interviews with us.
If you understand German you can view it here:
So lot's of nice people showed up and we had a blast.
Thanks to the great Bernhard Plank for taking great pictures of the event
- there's more of them on his page at imbilde.at
The local newspapers wrote about the exhibition,
stating it as a great thing to do during the week.
Here's some of Christoph's stuff I bluntly took a picture of with my phone - his work showed some of my paintings on broken walls. On the second picture you see the same painting when it was done more than a year ago - the first one shows it in a very recent state.
My wall of art behind a picture for the great beer sponsor :)
"The Beauty" (2014) - Spraypaint on Canvas
Here are the postcards we sold at the exhibition and which you can buy at http://colourcolliders.bigcartel.com/
Top left: David's work Down left: Jenny's, Down right: Christoph's and Top right is JAVER's & my work.
The overall exhibiton was a great experience. After a week of exhibitioning we removed the art and delivered them back home/ to the buyers. When I went out I discovered this window on the side of this old and cool building.
Isn't that a Broken Beauty?
