Contemporary Art from Georgia, Romania und Bosnia and Herzegovina

Works of Artists in Residence: Presentation 4/2011

Presentation of works by the Artists in Residence Irena Sladoje (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Marika Asatiani (Georgia) and Răzvan Botiş (Romania)

The artworks of Irena Sladojefrom Bosnia and Herzegovina are based on her intensive work on psychology. They focus on human beings and their various, highly personal characteristics. Sladoje captures people in different situations and while they are performing certain everyday activities. Her works subtly reflect her subjects’ states of mind and thus appear to “paint” their psychological portraits.

The works of Marika Asatiani, who hails from Georgia, explore the concepts of space and locality. The artist poses the question of what constitutes the difference between the two and asks how we can experience space and what kinds of relationships can exist between space and locality. “I have often focused on places that are hard to define, places that are in between fixed points and times. I focus on presenting a place as a process, rather than as something static and physical; I explore not only one position, one perspective, a fixed centre, but a passage, always looking in between: in between subjective and ‘objective’ modes of perception, where there is no one locality but a relationship.” (M. Asatiani) 

The Romanian artist Răzvan Botiş presents objects made out of everyday items such as pots or bricks. Through his artistic intervention he alters their original significance and gives them other associations. Out of everyday objects he conjures precious and decorative elements. His art plays with reality and fantasy: He cuts shining crowns out of brightly polished pots and presents bricks suspended in space as if they were weightless.

The Artist in Residence Programme

KulturKontakt Austria has invited 12 young artists to spend time in Vienna as Artists in Residence in 2011. During their respective three-month stays in Vienna, these artists are also being given an opportunity to present their works, including new ones created in Vienna, in four exhibitions held at Galerie ArtPoint. KulturKontakt Austria’s Artists in Residence Programme is for artists from Eastern and South Eastern Europe and Turkey, and has been offered since 1992. Since then, more than 5,550 artists have applied and more than 230 of them have participated in the programme. With its Artists in Residence Programme, KulturKontakt Austria enables artists to make contacts and engage in fruitful exchange in the Austrian and international art scenes.