Archive

NIGHT

The world after darkness has fallen, the reverse side of day, life between sunset and dawn – the night. At this time, different rules to those of the daytime often apply. It is the scene of dreams, loneliness, sleep, sexuality, the uncanny, of celebration and silence...

The transition from day to night, the twilight hour, causes contrasts to diminish, our eyes become uncertain, our ability to see is restricted by the darkness. Our focus is directed at things which prefer to remain hidden from the light of day.

The opening exhibition of the Galerie OstLicht showed works by artists who investigate the extensive topic of “Night” in a wide range of ways. Many of the works by a total of 18 artists have been created especially for this first exhibition at OstLicht.

Gregor Sailer has constructed himself a camera obscura, with which he documents night-time urban space and its abstract light phenomena by means of “controlled chance”.

Tina Lechner works with solarisation, a tricky darkroom process that plays with the relations of bright and dark contrasts and results in painterly, associative black and white photographs.

In his photograms – a photographic process that functions without a camera –, Hans Kupelwieser imitates a starlit sky and solar eclipses with the help of everyday objects.

Andreas Duscha explores the twilight hours, that magical phase between sunrise or sunset and the night, and attempts to capture the essence of this atmospheric phenomenon.

Tina Ribarits attracts us, in her installation-like work, into an uncanny, mysterious garden using large-format photographs; it appears to bloom somewhere between Victorian poetry and Hollywood suspense. In her several-part work,

Roberta Lima plumbs the various stages of consciousness.

Borjana Ventzislavova shows the shabby, empty rooms of sex clubs and brothels in Vienna, using her installation to highlight trade in women, violence, and the fate of female sex workers.

Katrina Daschner's work uses the image of torn matresses to thematise sexual abuse and incest.

In her series Anita Witek constructs abstract picture levels that change step by step and make space for the darker sides.

In his photographs Jules Spinatsch reveals a unique insight into the events around international economic summits like the World Economic Forum in Davos and New York, and the G8 Summit in Genoa.

Nives Widauer captures the magic of night in a poetic, almost impressionist way in her analogue, unprocessed moon-shadow photographs.

In his photo series “Disco / The Dark Curtain, St. Petersburg” Reiner Riedler recounts the wild nightlife during the “white nights” when the sun sets only briefly.

Michael Höpfner is drawn to geographically and socially peripheral areas, places of seclusion, isolation and the inhospitable, where he spends lonely nights in a tent.

Tatiana Lecomte's works make it possible for us to sense romantic discovery and loss in the infinite expanse of the sky, while Christian Eisenberger illuminates a visual echo of the moon.

Tomas Eller conveys the infinite uncertainty of the night in his collage. In images of New York at night Linn Schröder searches for the world of memory, dreams and nightmare.

Inge Krause captures the fleeting aspect, the transience of fireworks on Polaroids, together with that something that endures beyond everything: the moon at night.