Archive documents paper copies, glue, lacquer, wire, 16575 grams. 2019

Installation shots from 'Special School for Sculpture', xE. Photos by Jennifer Gelardo. © Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

TEXT FROM THE CATALOGUE

(Jakob Krameritsch, Simone Bader)

Handmade paper flowers and creepers made from archive materials that were collected during the research process for the exhibition. Based on the remains  of this research, an attempt is made to counter the production of knowledge with sculptural forms that resemble the garden flora at Academy‘s Kurzbauergasse building.

Delving into the sources of the institution‘s archives, we usually come upon men talking to men about men. When women speak, nobody forwards what they say; what they utter is stifled. Like in the case of university education for women in the period from 1911 to 1913. Thirty letters in which Bohemian and Moravian women‘s associations turn to the Ministry of Culture and Education to demand the right of access to the art universities of the Habsburg Empire are summarized in one sentence by the responsible speaker. Jaik transforms the three-finger-high files of these invisible petitions into a massive rather then lovely plant.