Everyday Life Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck – curated by Silvia Eiblmayr
Everyday Life
Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
curated by Silvia Eiblmayr
November 2001–January 2002
Exhibition views:
@ Rainer Iglar (1/2/8)
@ Margherita Spiluttini (3-7)
Galerie im Taxispalais Innsbruck
[…] Dorit Margreiter examines “everydayness", “everyday life" in terms of the conditions that created modernism, which may be outlined with the catchwords industrialization, technologization, urbanization, mediatization and globalization. She has purposely chosen the English title "Everyday Life" as a reference to the general obligation and dominance of the English language in the film and media industry and in information technology, which are among the most influential factors of globalization.
Margreiter investigates the influence of the film and television industry on various models of the construction of reality in conjunction with contemporary concepts of the urban or in relation to "everyday life". In this, she makes use of several historically different models: in some cases, she refers to special models of "classical" modernism – from architecture (e.g. the "Case Study House #22" built in 1947 in Los Angeles) or from Hollywood films (e.g. the famous "Monument Valley" known primarily from westerns), which are both intertwined with the symbolically highly charged promises of modernism (the "heroic house", solitary, grand "nature"). The artist links these "classical" models with exemplary models from the "everyday life" of today: the world of advertising, of commodities such as cosmetics, and – another form of ultimate entertainment goods – US television series that are broadcast worldwide, so-called "soap operas" and "sitcoms".
Margreiter draws certain terms and methods from the field of architecture and design, as well as from the genre of film and television, to make use of their formal and content components for her description of the media construction of reality: an architectonic component (e.g. Friedrich Kiesler's TL-structure, developed in 1924) or elements from a film set or a TV studio room are integrated prop-like in a kind of metal stage, on which Margreiter's partly documentary, partly fictive tales find a performance location.[…]
Text by Silvia Eiblmayr