Katrin Plavčak: Human or Other Exhibition Exploring Space and the Foreign at Secession
Plavčak's new works merge colonization narratives with futuristic space travel, combining painting, sculpture, and video art.
Katrin Plavčak's "Human or Other" exhibition at the Secession explores profound themes of space conquest and colonial ideas. Visitors can experience specially created works, including numerous paintings, movable objects, an outdoor installation, and a unique video collaboration. The exhibit merges futuristic space travel with narratives of human and extraterrestrial encounters, offering new perspectives.
About Katrin Plavčak: Human or Other at Secession in Vienna
Read curatorial context and practical visitor information for Katrin Plavčak: Human or Other at Secession in Vienna
Exhibition summary
This exhibition by Katrin Plavčak, titled 'Human or Other,' explores the conquest of new spaces and the associated ideas and fantasies of the foreign. It features newly created works including paintings, movable objects, an outdoor work, and a video collaboration.
Curatorial context
The exhibition 'Human or Other' by Katrin Plavčak in the main hall of the Secession centers on the conquest of new spaces and the accompanying notions and fantasies of the foreign. The specially created works include numerous paintings, a series of movable objects, an outdoor work, and the video 'No New Colonies,' a music video for the song of the same name created in collaboration with Johanna Kirsch. Plavčak engages with painting as a medium, keeping it open to a mediated environment and developing spatially expansive image concepts through juxtapositions that extend painting into the sculptural and installation-based. In the Secession, Plavčak stages her works as an ensemble that merges the colonization of foreign lands, futuristic space travel, the human, and the extraterrestrial into new narratives. The centrally positioned helium balloon references space pioneer Joe Kittinger, while steel tube sculptures like 'Dreibeinige Herrscher' (Three-legged Ruler) refer to animated machines from a 1980s science fiction television series. The painted images combine realpolitik allusions with the fantastic metaphor of modern chimeras and hybrid technology, while others feature abstract roller blinds, grids, and network structures that challenge the viewer's fixed perspective.
An outdoor work on the façade, featuring a large mustache, serves as an emblem of male power and a comedic accessory, described by Plavčak as an 'original intervention in public space.' Plavčak's visual inventions play with the inevitability of associations; collected media fragments and observations are transformed through a free process, combined with invented elements, distorted, and remixed. Her representations characteristically strike a balance between realism and abstraction, the visionary and the banal, fantasy and caricature.
Admission and ticket notes
Information regarding tickets can be found via the provided link. Admission to the Secession is generally subject to their ticketing policy, which may involve museum entry fees or separate exhibition tickets depending on the current offerings. Visitors are directed to the official ticketing portal for details. The page indicates "heute geöffnet" (open today) with hours from Tuesday-Sunday, 10 am-6 pm, and provides a general ticket link for the Secession venue, suggesting it's a standard exhibition with associated admission information available through their sales platform.
Katrin Plavčak: Human or Other key exhibition facts
Review exhibition status, schedule, venue context, and attribution details for Katrin Plavčak: Human or Other at Secession in Vienna
Venue
Secession
Current status
Completed
Exhibition schedule
Feb 20, 2009 – Apr 13, 2009
Artist line / attribution
The exhibition features works by Katrin Plavčak, born in 1970 in Gütersloh, who lives and works in Berlin and Vienna. The video 'No New Colonies' was created in collaboration with Johanna Kirsch.
Vienna
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