Friday 28 January 2011

newsfromlabiennale201101

Markus Schinwald (Salzburg, Austria in 1973) is representing Austria at the 54 La Biennale di Venezia, in 2011


Tamara, 2010
Oil on canvas (72,5x55,5cm)

Markus Schinwald's "works deal with the interrelated themes of the cultivation of the body, and altering perception through whimsical prosthetics in a freestyle trans-historical and trans-cultural fashion. The result veered between the macabre or slightly freaky and the quaint and amusing [...]

He's "work focuses on the body. In particular he studies movement and expressive gestures, and the ways in which these are governed by props, prosthesetic attachments or clothing (he originally studied fashion design). The figures in his films and performances represent bodies without emotion, personality or psychology. Taking these concerns a step further, he has made a number of life-size marionettes, which can be seen as a prosthetic substitution for the whole body [...]

Markus Schinwald's work alludes in a very individualistic way to historical myths, psychoanalysis, and cultural theories. He occupies an important position in contemporary artistic discourse. In his artworks, Markus Schinwald focuses on the many-faceted cultural and historical significance of the body and its medial staging. Prostheses and mechanical apparatuses often put the protagonists of his films and photographs under marionette-like constraints which transform the human body into a cultural artifact. In stage-like installations, interventions with articles of clothing, and photographic or filmic artworks, the artist works with a wide variety of techniques whose aesthetics he adapts for his stories in order to create idiosyncratic and mystical habitats [...]

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