Heidrun Holzfeind. forms in relation to life
24 Apr - 21 Jun 2015
Opening: Thursday, 23 April, 8 pm
The Vienna Werkbundsiedlung comprises seventy model houses erected between 1930 and 1932. Architects from Austria and abroad – including Adolf Loos, Gerrit Rietveld, and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky – designed these single-family homes, which were intended to provide maximum comfort in a very limited space. The project was both a response to the monumentalist strain in housing construction at the time and an attempt to counteract the dogmatism of the Modernist movement.
In Heidrun Holzfeind’s film, forms in relation to life (2014), current residents of the housing estate speak about their daily lives in the model 1930s houses. Accompanying the residents over the period of one year, Holzfeind shows a remarkable ability to gain insight into their personal needs and living concepts without passing judgment. How have people furnished their homes and adapted them to their wants and needs? How do they deal with their limited living space and the restrictions of a listed estate?
Their intimate conversations and recollections show which architectural ideas could be realized successfully and which ones have clearly failed. The film also shows how widely the individual residents’ notions of their obligations towards Modernism differ and the conflicts arising from these discrepencies. The estate’s social structure is thus closely intertwined with its architecture.
The film ends with a sequence in which children wearing animal costumes run through the estate. These costumes were sewn by the oldest female resident in the estate over many years. The sequence instances how Holzfeind uses the techniques of the documentary at the border between the real and the staged. Modernist architecture’s ideals are contrasted with the realities of everyday life, which in turn has created its own performative platforms and forms of representation. The film unmasks the entrenched conventions and structures of society, setting them against subjective wants and needs.
The original costumes, on display in the exhibition, also provide an entrée into Holzfeind’s other works, such as the photo series animals (fashion book), 2013, and the short film costume parade, 2014. The sculptures Kletterdreieck [Climbing Triangle], 2014, and Hausbaukasten [House Construction Set] (2015) – latter especially made for the exhibition – cite gymnastic and playground structures which Holzfeind became aware of during her research on kindergartens in Vienna. The form and material of the climbing frame refer, for example, to the geometrical objects of Minimal Art but it is also an object of everyday life: The framework can also be set up differently time and again.
Heidrun Holzfeind (b. 1972 in Lienz, Austria) lives and works in Vienna and New York. Her latest solo exhibitions include “never neverland“, Pavelhaus in cooperation with Steirischer Herbst, Austria, “Tsunami Architecture”, Centre d’Art Contemporain Yverdon (with Christoph Draeger), “forms in relation to life”, M29 – Richter Brückner, Collogne, “Strictly Privat“, BAWAG contemporary, Vienna, “Tsunami architecture“, OK Centrum Linz (with Christoph Draeger), “Za Zelazna Brama“, CCA, Ujazdowski castle, Warschau, “CU/Mexico 68“, in De Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands, in Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City and Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, “Imprevistos. Obras de Heidrun Holzfeind“, Lado B, MUCA Museum, UNAM, Mexico City, “Exposed“, Artists Space, New York, “Alien3”, W139 gallery, Amsterdam. Her works have also been shown in the following exhibition spaces: Centre d'Art Barcelona, Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, Malediven Pavilion, 55. Venice Biennale, MdM Salzburg, Camera Austria, Graz, MOMA, New York, amongst others.
Curated by Anja Casser
The Vienna Werkbundsiedlung comprises seventy model houses erected between 1930 and 1932. Architects from Austria and abroad – including Adolf Loos, Gerrit Rietveld, and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky – designed these single-family homes, which were intended to provide maximum comfort in a very limited space. The project was both a response to the monumentalist strain in housing construction at the time and an attempt to counteract the dogmatism of the Modernist movement.
In Heidrun Holzfeind’s film, forms in relation to life (2014), current residents of the housing estate speak about their daily lives in the model 1930s houses. Accompanying the residents over the period of one year, Holzfeind shows a remarkable ability to gain insight into their personal needs and living concepts without passing judgment. How have people furnished their homes and adapted them to their wants and needs? How do they deal with their limited living space and the restrictions of a listed estate?
Their intimate conversations and recollections show which architectural ideas could be realized successfully and which ones have clearly failed. The film also shows how widely the individual residents’ notions of their obligations towards Modernism differ and the conflicts arising from these discrepencies. The estate’s social structure is thus closely intertwined with its architecture.
The film ends with a sequence in which children wearing animal costumes run through the estate. These costumes were sewn by the oldest female resident in the estate over many years. The sequence instances how Holzfeind uses the techniques of the documentary at the border between the real and the staged. Modernist architecture’s ideals are contrasted with the realities of everyday life, which in turn has created its own performative platforms and forms of representation. The film unmasks the entrenched conventions and structures of society, setting them against subjective wants and needs.
The original costumes, on display in the exhibition, also provide an entrée into Holzfeind’s other works, such as the photo series animals (fashion book), 2013, and the short film costume parade, 2014. The sculptures Kletterdreieck [Climbing Triangle], 2014, and Hausbaukasten [House Construction Set] (2015) – latter especially made for the exhibition – cite gymnastic and playground structures which Holzfeind became aware of during her research on kindergartens in Vienna. The form and material of the climbing frame refer, for example, to the geometrical objects of Minimal Art but it is also an object of everyday life: The framework can also be set up differently time and again.
Heidrun Holzfeind (b. 1972 in Lienz, Austria) lives and works in Vienna and New York. Her latest solo exhibitions include “never neverland“, Pavelhaus in cooperation with Steirischer Herbst, Austria, “Tsunami Architecture”, Centre d’Art Contemporain Yverdon (with Christoph Draeger), “forms in relation to life”, M29 – Richter Brückner, Collogne, “Strictly Privat“, BAWAG contemporary, Vienna, “Tsunami architecture“, OK Centrum Linz (with Christoph Draeger), “Za Zelazna Brama“, CCA, Ujazdowski castle, Warschau, “CU/Mexico 68“, in De Vleeshal, Middelburg, Netherlands, in Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City and Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, “Imprevistos. Obras de Heidrun Holzfeind“, Lado B, MUCA Museum, UNAM, Mexico City, “Exposed“, Artists Space, New York, “Alien3”, W139 gallery, Amsterdam. Her works have also been shown in the following exhibition spaces: Centre d'Art Barcelona, Tamayo Museum, Mexico City, Malediven Pavilion, 55. Venice Biennale, MdM Salzburg, Camera Austria, Graz, MOMA, New York, amongst others.
Curated by Anja Casser