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„I question what I know“Stefan Inauen
Stefan Inauen ́s work oscillates between biographical experiences and strategical thoughts.
He puts private occurences into screens and transformes them till they end up in calculable
perceptions. Grown up in the swiss town Appenzell he is used to countrylike and catholic
customs and knows about traditions and orders. That‘s one reason why his discussion of local
rituals is significant in his work, it is evident on formal aspects as well as in questions of content.
The results are art works who are dealing with constellations, cycles or simple nature events.
Titles like „Four seasons“, „Thinking about tree“, „Thinking about egg“, „Just before downpur“
or „Endless summer“ refer to such themes.
Stefan Inauens works are always based on complete series. For instance his recent art pieces
are based on the paperwork „I can wait“ which he designed in summer 2004. The personal
experience of waiting for somebody in the swiss idyl is combined with landscape elements,
but the realistic and coloured landscape elemts are eliminated in Inauens new works. He now
combines the actual experience of waiting with sacral contents.
Different media like painting and sculpture dominated by the colors black and white are
culminating into installations and space. This way Inauen developes from already completed
works new pieces by going actually back to them. On one hand the recent results are
glimmering works which refer to Op-Art, on the other hand they are more by using their space
and becoming more illusionistic.
References from the 60th and 70th (like Vasarely) can be seen, but furthermore the optical
illusions refer to ancient roman mosaics. The formally pretending elements of Op-Art, are in
new works alienations of circuits, influences of Inauens former educations as machinist of
mechanics become clear.
Stefan Inauen (*1976) studies since 1999 with Prof. Dieter Hacker at the UdK (University of
arts) in Berlin and will finish his studies in February 2005.
The artist works and lives in Berlin and in Switzerland. His show at the Klara Wallner Gallery in
January 2005 will be his first solo show in a gallery.