Sonia Leimer: Above the crocodiles / In the Login: Alice Konitz - Dr. Gundula?s Office Event

In her installations, Sonia Leimer explores our perceptual foundations, which are formed on the basis of individual, historical, and media-related patterns of experience. As products of concrete historical contexts, rooms and objects undergo a transformation in which history and societal changes become palpable.

The exhibition title Above the crocodiles refers to a video that Sonia Leimer compiled using archive material from a Russian TV channel. We see the searching of the camera of two Russian astronauts filming different territories on earth from the ISS space station and talking about what they see. Sonia Leimer added a female astronaut to the audio track who contributes her own observations, thoughts, and questions to the conversation; hence, the interplay between political reality and personal desire emerges as the main theme. The video is showing in a room in which several I-beams have been transformed into seats with upholstery, the fabric of which was produced by a company from the former Soviet Union. Sonia Leimer?s installation thus not only brings political change to the fore, it also highlights the increase in global interconnectedness.

The idea of stability in a political and architectural sense is also visible in another room-encompassing installation. Here, an entire wall is suspended using a water counterweight, the upward lift of the wall illustrating the gallery room?s revolt against gravity. The underlying, sensitive system of dependencies creates a temporarily stable situation that could topple at any moment.

Also from a stable system but now removed are the pieces of asphalt – fragments of the city – which Sonia Leimer has spread out over the floor of another room, forcing visitors to step over the individual pieces. In the gallery space within this centuries-old Viennese building, they challenge us for a moment, pointing out the temporality of all human attempts to create something lasting.
The printed window films for cars establish a link between the pieces of road and our distanced view from above – something that is also addressed in the video. The screen print shows a photograph taken by the space probe Voyager in 1990. From a distance of about 6 billion kilometers, earth appears only as a pale blue dot.

In the LOGIN: ALICE KÖNITZ Dr. Gundula?s Office

Alice Könitz imagines Dr. Gundula as ?a travelling radio psychiatrist or someone who gives advice in another capacity. She is well-versed in many things. Her exact occupation is unclear.? Preceded by the works Dr. Gundula?s Waiting Room (2011) and Dr. Gundula?s Desk (2013), Könitz?s latest work divides the LOGIN into two rooms through a wall sculpture that also has a connecting opening. The circular section of cut-out wall hangs down in the room near the entrance and acts as a relief sculpture, while a geometric armchair can be seen in the other room. ?I imagine Dr. Gundula receiving news through the hole in the wall from time to time, or communicating in another way through the hole. It was important for me to make the hole large enough to be able to crawl through with some difficulty, but small enough that you would most likely refrain from doing just that.? Alice Könitz is interested in the different vantage points from the outside, the imaginary viewpoints through the opening in the wall separating the two rooms, and the imaginary points of view from the inside to the outside. In sum, it is a model of a private room transported into public space.

Alice Könitz has been operating an experimental exhibition space for a participatory artistic practice called the Los Angeles Museum of Art (LAMOA) since 2012. Sonia Leimer?s exhibition WOW! was hosted there in 2014. Also in 2014, Alice Könitz?s LAMOA won the Mohn Award at the Hammer Museum?s Los Angeles Biennial.

Accompanying the exhibition, the Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna is publishing the booklet Sonia Leimer and Alice Könitz, WOW!, featuring a conversation between Sonia Leimer and Alice Könitz as well as texts by Joanna Fiduccia and Andrew Berardini.

SONIA LEIMER, born in 1977 in Meran, Italy, lives and works in Vienna. Studied at the Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna. Selected exhibitions: 2015: Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna (solo); Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Germany; 2014: Galerie Barbara Gross, Munich (solo); Wow!, LAMOA Museum of Art Los Angeles (solo); Austrian Cultural Forum London; 2013: 5th Moscow Biennial; Vienna Museum; ABC Berlin (solo); 2012: Artothek, Cologne (solo); Museion, Bozen (solo); MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles (solo); 2011: Kunstverein Basis, Frankfurt/Main (solo); 2010: BAWAG Contemporary, Vienna (solo); Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (solo); Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck; Triennale Linz; 2008: Manifesta 7, Rovereto

ALICE KÖNITZ, born in 1970 in Essen, Germany, lives and works in Los Angeles. Studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and at the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA. Selected exhibitions: 2015: Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna (LOGIN, solo); 2014: Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA; UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; 2012: Wall House, Groningen, The Netherlands (solo); 2009: LA><ART, Los Angeles, CA (solo); 2008: Susanne Vielmetter Berlin Projects, Berlin (solo); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Since 2012 numerous participatory projects: LAMOA, Eagle Rock, LAMOA in Made in L.A. 2014, Hammer Museum, LAMOA in The Fifth Wall, LAMOA at temporary location, LAMOA at Occidental College