Anna Hofbauer, Anja Ronacher
AH: Can you tell us about how you were led to the antique objects shown in your recent works?
AR: I have been researching the relationship of art and the gift (looking at objects that are treated in the museums as art but were originally produced for gift-giving, sometimes for their own destruction). Many objects I photograph are funerary equipment, they were made out of clay (which is earth) to be buried again, invisible to the living. There is a lavishness and beauty in this act that seems impossible in our utilitarian and enlightened society. Some of the objects I have photographed were buried until the 19th or 20th century and were only then unearthed by archeologists.
AH: What is your relationship to the idea/institution of a museum?
AR: Perhaps museums play a crucial role for a spirituality that has been lost, a futile invocation of the ancestors in a struggle against the terrifying void. This struggle against could also be a struggle for nothingness. The historic discontinuity of the objects is brought to a contemporaneity in their presence in the museum. Here contemporary culture assembles, archives and categorizes them: presence of all times.
AH: How do you decide on your representation of the objects?
AR: All objects I photograph are shown in their (now) original context. Some of them are placed inside vitrines, I am interested in the distance the vitrine creates, it resembles the distance we encounter in the image. Framing has become an important device for showing this distance, in the same time I try to get closer. Like the photographic image the objects remain withdrawn in a space beyond touch.
AH: Some archaeological interpretations are as representative for the time that they have been created in as ideas and aesthetics of science fiction movies or books. Do you have a favorite story of some historic object or site – scientifically proven or not – that you care to share with us?
AR: White ground lekythoi were used in ancient greece as funerary equipment. On one of the lekythoi in the work „white ground lekythos“ we see a depiction of a small winged figure above the head of the deceased, this „Eidola“ (shadow figure) represents the soul.
AH: Your works also deal with questions about methods and materials of cultural identification. What is Europe 2013 for you?
AR: Knowing subjects and proprietors, the museum seems an emblematic space. Perhaps the recurrence of antiquity in contemporary art shows a need to rethink the ground of human artistic activity, searching for “ a new logic (…) one that grasps the innermost depths of life and death without leading us back to reason.“ (Deleuze in Bartleby; or, the formula), open to an affective intensity and enchantment beyond knowledge.
lives in Vienna, Austria
MA Fine Art (Photography), Royal College of Art, London
Fine Art (Photography), Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn
MA Scenography, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Solo Exhibitions
2013
Void, 21erRaum, curated by Severin Dünser, 21erHaus, Belvedere, Vienna
Group Exhibitions and Screenings
2013
VBKÖ, Vienna
Hannes Böck, Anja Ronacher, curated by Anna Hofbauer, Blackbridge Offspace, Beijing
My Dirty Gods, Lust Gallery, Vienna
Salzburger in Wien, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg
Foto – Objekt – Bild (Raum), Fotogalerie, Wien
Die Sammlung #3, 21erHaus, Belvedere, Wien
Ephemeral Self – Finite Projections, curated by Robert Gruber, Galerie NTK, Prague
FOTOS. Österreichische Fotografien von den 1930igern bis heute, 21erHaus, Belvedere, Wien
2012
Air Hungary 2011-2012, Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna
Kunstankäufe des Landes 2010-2012, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg
When We Dead Awaken, Beers Lambert Contemporary, London
2011
The body resembles a sentence II – The untimely image, DieAusstellungsstraße, Vienna (with Robert Gruber)
Der Körper gleicht einem Satz/ The body resembles a sentence, Kunstraum Pro Arte, Hallein (with Robert Gruber)
Dienstag Abend, Ve.sch, Anja Ronacher / Robert Gruber, Vienna
Transgression, Beers Lambert Contemporary, London
2010
Sweet Anticipation, Jahresausstellung, curated by Övül Durmusoglu, Salzburger Kunstverein, (with Robert Gruber)
Bodycodes – Menschenbilder aus der Sammlung, Museum of Modern Art, Salzburg
Souvenirs from Earth, TV screening, DE/FR
2009
Right Here, Right Now – Fotokunst aus Salzburg, curated by Severin Dünser, Galerie Fotohof, Salzburg
Success / Failure, tactileBOSCH Gallery, Cardiff, Wales, UK
Fullframe, screening, Volksgartenpavillon Graz
2008
Memory Circus, Kunstverein, Salzburg, AT
Show RCA, Royal College of Art, London, UK
Imperial Works, London, UK
2007
Kinoskipos, screening, curated by Rut Blees Luxemburg, Hadspen Gardens; UK
Failure, Month of Photography, Krakow
Kunstankäufe des Landes, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg
Awards
2014 Studio Grant, bm:ukk, Rome
2012 AIR Hungary, Galerie Krinzinger
2012 Studio Grant, Land Salzburg, Beijing
2012 Staatsstipendium Photography, bm:ukk
2011 Studio Grant , bm:ukk, London
2010 Studio Grant, Land Salzburg,CSW Zamek Ujazdowski, Warsaw
2009 Studio Grant, Land Salzburg, Paliano/Rome
2009 Studio Grant, Land Salzburg, Cité Internationale des Arts Paris
Publications
2013
“Fotos Österreichische Fotografien von den 1930ern bis heute”, herausgegeben von Agnes Husslein-Arco,Severin Dünser, Axel Köhne und dem Bundesministerium für Unterricht, Kunst und Kultur, Belvedere, Wien, Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg
2012
Kunstankäufe Land Salzburg 2010-2012, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg
2011
Transgression, Beers Lambert, Exh. Catalogue, London
Kunstforum International, Exhibition Review, Sweet Anticipation, Band 207/2011, p.358
2009
Rattle, A Journal at the Convergence of Art and Writing, Issue 1, UK (ed. Tom Robinson, Jon K. Shaw)
2007
Kunstankäufe des Landes 2004-2006, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg