Isa Rosenberger

Work description

Staged Realities

Isa Rosenberger, an artist who works in the realms of photography, video, installation, and text, and realizes projects in public space (Trafik Kino, Wiener Volkertplatz, 2006), focuses in her work on social phenomena, especially situations of political transformation and their impact on people. The countries of the former Eastern Bloc, which she began to focus on after a fellowship in Sarajevo, are predestined for this issue. Her video and photographic works are usually combinations of images and texts from interviews with people on site. Communication and personal contact with the “actors” of her work, especially women, represented an important component of her artistic engagement. Her point of departure is almost always an ideologically occupied architecture, site, or monument of importance to people. Isa Rosenberger explains stories that tell of changing ways of life and conditions, losses, desires, hopes, and happiness. Starting with a documentary approach, the artist reaches a point where private memory and/or lived history breaks with official historiography.

Her most recent works are the 16 part black and white photoseries Warschauer Nike (2007) in which she combined photographs of the monument of the same name (commemorating Poland’s victory over Germany in the Second World War) with expressions of randomly chosen anonymous passersby about their relationship to the sculpture, as well as the video word Nový Most (2007/08). Here, the artist asks three local women from different generations about their relationship to the suspension bridge erected between 1967 and 1972 in Bratislava, filmed them walking across it and combined these images with archival material from Slovakian television on the building of the bridge, quite explosive in historical terms. The perspectives of the bridge once connected two politically contrary systems, and the old Jewish quarter had to be destroyed for its construction.

Isa Rosenberger’s works are a poetic, sometimes humorous journey through time, securing traces of memories whose complexity and processuality is reflected in the medium of film, so rich in images, as well as in the photographic works that, just like the videos, are complemented with texts.

Beyond the social-analytic approach, Isa Rosenberger’s work is an artistic engagement with reality that she condenses formally and thematically in a kind of montage/collage. Her photographic and video works as well as spatial installations are staged realities. Performative elements, such as the women walking across the bridge, the photographer walking around the Nike statute, the positioning of the former model for the sculpture Die Chemiearbeiterin (The Chemical Worker) on its now empty base in the city Wolfen, once located in the GDR (video Denkmal für das Frauenzentrum, 2005/06) or the presentation of people interviewed standing in front of places of importance to them in Sarajevo (Sarajevo Guided Tours: A Journey to a Real and Imagined Place, 2002), were all conceived by Isa Rosenberger together with the “actors.”

The pictures are aesthetically shaped, whereby the composition of the carefully planned scenes often moves to abstraction: the views  of the bridge Nový Most, some incomplete, makes it seem immense, while the people in the video, often shot in an unidealized fashion, from the side or behind, seem almost uninvolved. The subjective notions and impressions of the author shine though, distance and proximity, alienation and understanding at the same time.

The black and white technique of the Nike series is abstracted reality per se, just as the model of the symbolic, futuristic seeming panorama café Bystrica on the bridge Nový Most, executed in a consciously rudimentary fashion, which is classified as a spatial installational element of the photographic and video works.

Reality and fiction mix in Isa Rosenberger’s works, due to the frequent shift of perspective and the compression of space and time, signs of the fragmentary character of reality.

Petra Noll

(Erstabdruck in: Eikon Internationale Zeitschrift für Photographie und Medienkunst, Heft 65, Februar 2009)

Biography

Isa Rosenberger

1969 born in Salzburg (Austria)

lives and works in Vienna (Austria)

1988–1993    Hochschule für angewandte Kunst, Vienna (A)

1994–1996    Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht (NL)

Solo exhibitions, projects (2000-2011, selection)

2011

Espiral, Grazer Kunstverein (A)

Annenviertel Manifest, Projekt im öffentlichen Raum im Rahmen von Annenviertel – Kunst des urbanen Handelns, < rotor > association for contemporary art, Graz (A)

2010

Video des Monats #54, Ursula Blicke Videolounge und photowall, Kunsthalle Wien (A)

2009

Edith-Ruß-Haus für Medienkunst (mit Nira Pereg), Oldenburg (D)

2008

Isa Rosenberger, Secession, Wien (A) (Katalog)

Otto-Mauer-Preis 2008, Jesuitenfoyer, Wien (A)

2007

Österreichisches Kulturforum Warschau (PL)

2004

Ein Zeichen der Zeit, Kunst im Porschehof, Porsche Holding Salzburg (A) (Kat.)

2003

Schöne Aussicht – Modelle in verdichteten Räumen, Kunstverein Langenhagen (D)

2002

Sarajevo Guided Tours, Sarajevo International Airport, in Kooperation mit Sarajevo Center for Contemporary Art, Sarajevo (BIH)

OF(F) lived spaces (mit Michael Zinganel), Galerie Pohlhammer, Steyr (A)

2001

...Wirklichkeit ..., Kunstverein Wolfsburg (D)

2000

Studio 2000, Schnitt Ausstellungsraum, Köln (D)

Gruppenausstellungen und Video-Screenings (2000-2011, Auswahl)

2011

Second World, Gallerija Nova, kuratiert von WHW, Zagreb (HR)

Großer Kunstpreis des Landes Salzburg - Werke von 14 Salzburger Künstlern/innen, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg (A)

Zone_Prekär, kuratiert von Petra Noll, Kunstsäle Berlin (D) (Kat.)

+DECOLONIAL AESTHETICS, Duke University Durham, kuartiert von Walter Mignolo, Marina Gržinić u.a., Durham (USA)

2010

Encounters in Relational Geography - Dust, Ashes, Residua, Calvert 22 Foundation, kuratiert von Richard Appignanesi, London (GB) (Kat.)

Racism, Europe, Capital, Queer, Videoprogramm präsentiert von Marina Gržinić, City of Women-Festival, Ljubljana (SLO)

Einen Ort herstellen, Neuer sächsischer Kunstverein im Festspielhaus Hellerau, kuratiert von Ilina Koralova, Dresden (D) (Kat.)

The Romance of my Young Days, the Future of my Nostalgia, Central Slovakian Gallery, kuratiert von Mira Keratová, Banská Bystrica (SK) (Kat.)

Lange nicht gesehen. Long time no see ,The Brno House of Art, Brno (CZ)

MONEY ETC. - Isa Rosenberger und Kristian Leko, Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic, kuratiert von Vesna Vuković, Zagreb (HR)

Triennale Linz 1.0, Landesgalerie am oberösterreichischen Landesmuseum, Linz (A) (Kat.)

Encounters in Relational Geography - Dust, Ashes, Residua, Open Space, kuratiert von Richard Appignanesi, Wien (A)

Das Fundament der Kunst - Die Skulptur und ihr Sockel seit Alberto Giacometti, Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Remagen (D) (Kat)

2009

VacuumNoise, Trafo Gallery, Budapest (H)

Because it´s like now, it won´t stay that way, Galeria Arsenał, kuratiert von Margarethe Makovec und Anton Lederer, Bialystok (PL) (Kat.)

Anita Leisz, Anna Meyer, Isa Rosenberger, Städtische Galerie, Nordhorn (D)

Bertha von Suttner Revisited, Schloss Harmannsdorf, kuratiert von Susanne Neuburger und Hedwig Saxenhuber, Niederösterreich (A)

"Eccentric Paths II" Young Central European Positions, kuratiert von Sarolta Schredl Arsenals / The Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga (LV)

Ankäufe des Landes Salzburg Teil II, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg (A) (Kat.)

10 Jahre < rotor >, < rotor > association for contemporary art, Graz (A)

1989: The End of History or the Beginning of the Future? Video Art Comments on a Time Shift, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York (USA) (Kat.)

Das Fundament der Kunst - Die Skulptur und ihr Sockel seit Alberto Giacometti, Skulpturen- und Kunstmuseum der Städtischen Museen Heilbronn (D) (Kat.)

2008

Schrumpfende Städte – Interventionen, SPACES Gallery, Cleveland (USA) und Liebfrauenkirche, Duisburg (D)

Du Dialogue Social, Motorenhalle Dresden

2007

Shrinking Cities, Cranbrook Art Museum, Detroit (USA) und Site Art Gallery, Liverpool (GB)

Lange nicht gesehen. Begegnungen mit dem Museum auf Abruf, Museum auf Abruf, Wien (A)

ich gegenüber, Österreichische Botschaft, Berlin (D)

2006

Shrinking Cities, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York (USA)

Every Day ... another artist/work/show, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (A)

Donaumonarchie, Projekt im öffentlichen Raum, Billboart Gallery, Bratislava (SK)

Geschichte(n) vor Ort – eine Ausstellung rund um den Wiener Volkertmarkt, KÖR, kuratiert von Margarethe Makovec und Roland Schöny, Wien (A)

Es ist schwer das Reale zu berühren / Videoarchiv, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz (A) (Kat.)

2005

Großer Kunstpreis des Landes 05, Galerie im Traklhaus, Salzburg (A)

Schrumpfende Städte 2 – Interventionen, Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig (D) (Kat.)

2003

trautes heim, Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig (D) (Kat.)

trans/archive. Schleifen des Bedeutens, Galerie 5020, Salzburg (A)

(based upon) TRUE STORIES, International Film Festival Rotterdam (NL)

Es ist schwer das Reale zu berühren, Videofestival, kuratiert von Ruth Kaaserer u.a., Kunstverein München (D)

DIAGONALE 03 – festival des österreichischen films, Graz (A)

play global, Transmediale Berlin (D)

21er, 20er Haus, Wien (A)

2002

touristische blicke / touristic gazes, Kunstverein Wolfsburg (D) (Kat.)

Hot Destination (Marginal Destiny), Art Workshop Lazareti, Dubrovnik (HR)

duisburger filmwoche – festival des deutschsprachigen dokumentarfilms, Duisburg (D)

Arsenal Armory, Wandelhalle Köln (D)

2001

Kristina Leko / Isa Rosenberger, <rotor> association for contemporary art, Graz (D)

REkonstruktion_heimAT, Forum Stadtpark, Graz (A)

2000

the unhomely home / das unheimliche heim, Kunstverein Wolfsburg (D) (Kat.)

Lebt oder arbeitet in Graz, <rotor> association for contemporary art, Graz (A)