Discover Maja Vukoje's Exhibition: Paintings and Drawings at Secession

This exhibition showcases Maja Vukoje's recent large-format paintings and drawings, which explore themes of landscape and masked figures. Vukoje's work creates an unsettling atmosphere and a sense of dissolving physical presence, referencing new objecthood in painting.

Maja Vukoje's artistic approach is characterized by a dual strategy: starting from a figurative basis and drawing from pre-mediated material, she creates images of landscapes and mask-like figures. These motifs are enveloped in an unsettling sphere and a dissolving physical presence, pointing towards a new objecthood in painting that Vukoje engages with. The exhibition in the Secession gallery features a selection of her large-format paintings and drawings from the past two years. Vukoje entices viewers with scenes that simultaneously open to and close off the empathy of kitsch; motifs like a deer in the forest, a girl in a ballet dress, and African children appear as readily accessible due to their familiarity from mass culture. However, Vukoje disrupts these images by juxtaposing them and thus dismantling linear structures. She typically bases her individual works on three to four different visual sources, weaving them into her own narrative. This fragmentation of content is underscored in the painterly execution through sketchy suggestions. The simultaneous use of different techniques—spray paints alongside acrylic and oil, drips and smears alongside powerful brushstrokes, earthy watercolor tones next to toxic green and neon orange—creates the necessary tension between the concrete and the abstract. Almost fluorescent colors make the figurative elements begin to float, until they move through the picture space like shadows of things, always on the verge of dissolving. Vukoje's work is characterized by situations that turn into visual puzzles, such as when two men with a chainsaw appear schematically between an idyllically gathered group of flamingos by a lake. Such visions, imagined experiences, and déjà-vus repeatedly provide inspiration for Vukoje's pictures. Her works are determined by a complex content, for example, the engagement with her own history, as most clearly expressed in the drawn self-portraits. The drawings echo the motifs, symbols, and ideas of the paintings. In a comic-like situation, Vukoje portrays herself as a female heroine—a metaphor for the search for universally valid statements. Just as recognizable figures are alienated in the paintings, this figure also stands for shifts in meaning beyond the clichés of good and evil. The staging references both a cinematic context and that of theater, which Vukoje repeatedly designs anew for her figures: landscapes reminiscent of forest, steppe, jungle, or swamp intensify the stage-like nature of the events through a sense of fundamental placelessness. In this context, form and figure are to be deciphered; accordingly, Vukoje also refers to her works as 'Sisyphus images.' Thus, a girl in the desert with a shovel and three dried branches in the background offers various interpretation possibilities: How deep can one dig? What is being sought at all? Here, the diverse references of the sources open up, e.g., to Dostoevsky's literary works on a psychology of unconscious, soft transitions. Vukoje quotes fantastic (visual) content and scenarios of dream-like sequences and the corresponding demand: 'The fantastic always already counts on an active recipient, the phantasticos.' (Melanie Ohnemus)

Information and tickets for the Secession can be found via the provided links. The exhibition dates are March 3 to April 23, 2006. Visitors can check opening hours and ticketing details through the official website and linked ticketing platform.