INTUIT DISTANCE: Group Exhibition

11 Oct - 10 Dec 2022

The exhibition “Intuit Distance” is organized in dedication to the opening of a new location of the Suppan gallery at the former newspaper printing house in the Doblhoffgasse. The title of the exhibition, “Intuit Distance”, reflects the main concept of the show and also implies the intricate architectural planning of the gallery. Two different levels –basement and the ground floor – which are connected by a 100 years old spiral staircase, merge together into an organically sited exhibition which is unified by 11 international artists working in distinct artistic fields (installations, sound installation, video, photography,
paintings, drawings). The interplay between materiality, visuality and sound creates a mental landscape within which the viewers can situate themselves and become involved in an experience of different sensations. The exhibition features a constellation of works by artists from the Suppan gallery and invited artists. Visual and conceptual characteristics of the works differ, but they are bound together by the joint intuited theme - concealed distance which might be perceived and experienced in a rather poetic way.
The central starting points to discover and follow the conceptual approach of the entire exhibition are two artworks: the installation “Cinema Oceano” by Nigel Gavus and Ilkin Beste and the sound installation “Sägezahm” by Andreas Trobollowitsch. The video-installation by the artist duo Nigel Gavus and Ilkin Beste Cirak leads the audience on a voyage through the ocean to the common state of its’ infinity. The horizon of the ocean meets within the bright and dark blue - the blue of distance. In her book “A Field Guide to Getting Lost” Rebecca Solnit is enlightening that the blue of distance is “the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go.” The meaning of
distance in the exhibition is suggested to be identified both as a physical distance seen or felt through the art works and also as a metaphor disclosing art works in their individual manifestation. The viewer is invited to cross over the invisible and unapproachable and rather dive into what is possible to everyone - the imaginative here or there – the distances that you can reach, the places that you can be in. The looping sound coming from the sound installation “Sägezahm” created by Andreas Trobollowitsch influences the expansion of our vision. Two/ three guitars, whose strings are delicately touched by turning metal discs settled on a set of turn tables, create a melancholic polyphony and carry off the audience into the atmosphere of unequal distances. The sound spreads with repetitive circles through the space, echoing on each art
work and expanding our vision and understanding. The continuous sound influenced also by the distance among the instruments and the acoustics of the space suggests a slow progression through time and space. Every note which emerges from the guitars seem to remark and repeat the dots from the drawings created by Jurgis Gečys. The thousands of dots ‘collected’ by artist on the sheets of paper reveal the outstanding boundless physical as well as mental transformations of land- and seascapes. He explores nature on foot, by
bicycle or sailing and captures his experiences and impressions with his pencil on paper. His drawings are mirroring his physical movements through the landscapes. The transformations of landscapes experienced through time, distances and locomotion from A to B indicate the changes through life and the importance of the floating time. In a far different way, the theme of distance is capped in the vases painted by Laura Limbourg. They contain the stimulating themes of gender equality, sexual discrimination and women abuse. The traditional image of the woman as a vessel collides with the harsh reality of suppression and exploitation, that the artist packs in uncomfortable and uncanny narratives. Dénesh Ghyczy presents paintings which reveal the state of distance and the sheltering approach. He shows interior and exterior spaces focusing on the interface between them. Most of his interiors are historically important buildings, orangeries or swimming pools enclosed with huge windows; they reveal a view on outside spaces exposing picturesque nature or urban landscapes in short or far distances. Claudia Märzendorfer in her artistic practice is dealing with topics such as transience, disappearance and fragility. Time is ambiguous in her oeuvre. Due to the materiality of her installations and objects which are mostly produced from ice they exist just a short period of

time and after disappearance reside just in the video/ photography documentation. Organic colourful curves reminding soft amorphous matter appear in Michael Ornauer paintings. His colourful paintings have a great reminiscence to the microorganisms visible through the microscope but in a much larger scale. In another work the colourful germ-like forms
appeared from the scratching the monochrome surface under which the multiple layers of colours are conserved. The installation “One Universe” by Michael Strasser is trying to inhabit the gallery space. The artist indicates the atmosphere of being within his theatrical looking set design and at the same time broaches the absence of human. The approaching of man in Strasser’s universe depends on the perception of viewers – how distant they are
and how close they could be. The metamorphosis of humankind is illustrated in the photographs presented by Tina Lechner. By cutting, curving, banding and gluing she builds up science fiction figures or armors for protection of humanity or human inner-sides. Markus Huemer paints inner-spaces which resemble exploded interiors and which create the experience of unsuccessfully created virtual reality where the walls overpass each other, the staircase handles and cables are flying spectral in the space. Just a hint of the brushstroke on the sides brings back to the substance of painting.