Elke Silvia Krystufek
Elke Krystufek ‘You’ 2011, 42 x 29.5 cm, black chalk on paper
Elke Krystufek ‘Cicciolina 1’ 2011, 42 x 29.5 cm, black chalk on paper
Elke Krystufek ‘Cicciolina 2’ 2011, 42 x 29.5 cm, black chalk on paper
Elke Krystufek ‘Batman’ 2011, 42 x 29.5 cm, black chalk on paper
Elke Krystufek ‘Press a key’ 2008, 100 x 100 cm, acrylic and ink on canvas
Elke Krystufek ‘What’s one without the other ‘ 1995, 58.5 x 61 cm, acrylic on fabric
Elke Krystufek ‘Ofcourse’ 2011, 42 x 29.5 cm, black chalk on paper
Elke Krystufek 'me-who would listen to me' 2007, 70x50cm, colored pencil on paper
Vegas Gallery is delighted to present “Harmonie 2″, an exhibition including new works on paper, video and painting by Elke Silvia Krystufek.
“Harmonie 2″ is part of a series of exhibitions (Harmonie 3, Harmonie 5, Harmonie 8, Harmonie 20) following in different locations across the world (Los Angeles, Zürich, Poitiers and Berlin).
As in Krystufek’s previous work, she brings a combination of insight and subjectivity to the genre of figurative art. Possessing a humorous and sometime ironic eye Krystufek plays with the viewer and the dynamics of looking at a painting. The texts which are employed in some of her works could be seen as poetry lyrics and musical scores as well as key words addressing subjectivity from a musical angle. The harmony that exists in the works is similar to tonal symphonies and the string theories which is then sent tail-spinning into chaotic dissonance by the over-subjectification the masses apply to more contemporary art.
Elke Silvia Krystufek’s work challenges our assumptions about various media (’classical’ painting, video, sculpture, installation) by providing a sort of mathematical description of duality and energy which are used simultaneously to describe the tension in her works. Truth in her representation is subject to change, therefore the approach to creating “Harmonie 2″ was for a change, not for an art historical, but more a movement in between the works and the exhibitions titled “Harmonie”. Krystufek says: “Think of quantum dynamics. Mechanics. Motion. We shift ideas in a second. What sticks, what lasts in a work is truly subjective.”
The exhibition is kindly sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum London
Elke Silvia Krystufek (b. Austria, 1970) studied at Akademie deer Bildenden Kunste in Vienna from 1988 to 1992, where she has held a professorship from 2005 to 2006.
Krystufek’s institutional exhibitions include GEM – Museum of Contemporary Art, Den Haag, ARC Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, MoMA Contemporary Art Center in New York and Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen. Moreover, Krystufek was one of the four selected artist representing Austria at the Venice Biennale in the Austrian pavilion in 2009.