BRIGITTE KOWANZ
REMEMBER THE FUTURE
Opening: March 21, 2024
Duration: March 21 – May 18, 2024
Curated by Adrian Kowanz and organized in close collaboration with the Estate Brigitte Kowanz, Galerie Krinzinger is dedicating the first posthumous exhibition in Vienna to the renowned artist Brigitte Kowanz. remember the future spans an arc from her early series of works to her latest pieces. Kowanz worked until her unexpected death in 2022 on numerous artworks, some of which are now being presented for the first time.
The exhibition remember the future is based on Kowanz’s specific engagement with the exhibition spaces of Galerie Krinzinger at Seilerstätte, where she had her first solo exhibition in 1988. Almost 36 years later, remember the future combines spatial installations by the artist from various decades, which are referenced and transformed by her subsequent works.
Kowanz’s artistic exploration of light as a medium for transmitting information – namely language – is inherent in all of her works. While in earlier pieces such as More L978t the artist examined light as a medium of communication, of knowledge transfer, in short as a medium of cognition, in Away, Secret of Courage and Motivation she explored the role of the viewers as part of the work, who upon entering a virtual space structured by their reflection in the mirror, become confronted with coded messages. These coded messages as a spatial experience are echoed in Unspoken, which is suspended in mid-air, as well as in asap, omg, wywh and fyi. In these pieces, Kowanz worked with LED tubes on which she covered certain sections to make the light appear as Morse code. Especially in the four pieces asap, omg, wywh and fyi from her Acronyms series, Kowanz continued to pursue her decade-long interest in the medium of language and reflected on the changes that language has undergone as a result of accelerated communication in the digital age. These are thoughts that Kowanz already explored in her earlier Discs series in which she attached partially covered neon tubes on round stainless-steel plates, creating reflections of light-coded messages. In 2021, the artist mounted some of these works on tripods, transforming them into spatial installations that have not yet been exhibited. The work Delight acts as a parenthesis, linking the different series of works while thematizing the various types of spatiality.
Widely regarded as one of the most important artists of our time, Brigitte Kowanz’s work has been described by many art theorists as conceptual poetry. Her preoccupation with light as an information carrier not only raises questions concerning our language and our perception of reality, but also our digital presence in the Age of Information. The exhibition remember the future brings together selected artworks that underline Brigitte Kowanz’s visionary artistic reflections, which appear to be more virulent than ever in the light of an increasing convergence of the real and the digital.
