ST:A:R_22

40 ST/A/R
Buch V - PENKER Nr. 22/2009
JULIE RYAN 303 Gallery, NY
Julie Ryan artist, writer and curator of „The Red Thread“, which most recently
occured at Dana Charkasi Gallery here in Vienna, is presently an artist in
the Linikus sponsored Artists Residency in Bauernmarkt. Though Ryan is
not new to vienna, she is searching for her position in Vienna, a place which
generally doesn’t embrace arists who also write and curate.
Q: How did you come to Vienna initially (was it to paticipate in Franz West’s
opera?)
Julie:
Yes, I was living in Paris and Mary Heilmann called me from Vienna. She had
an exhibition here and was travelling alone and invited me to visit. 14 and
half hour train ride later I joined her. I met Franz then and he invited me to
return and perform for the opening of MUMOK. Since then I have spent my
time in Vienna.
In 2005 you curated „the Read Thread“ shows in Seattle & New York of Austrian
(and others living or connected to Vienna) about the artists you were
directly in contact with at the time Franz West, Muntean Rosenblum, Markus
Schinwald, Lisa Ruyter etc., were as the new ve
rsion here at Dana Charkasi is moving forward, new contacts and new
people in vienna, but also backward as a portrait of the gallery... can you
explain a little.
Julie:
I had had the idea to organize an exhibtion in Vienna. But not seconds after
thinking of it, it seemed a political quagmire. It dawned on me that I was in
a unique position by having access to a space in NYC, the Educational Alliance
where I had curated a series of well received exhibtions over the years.
At this time in 2003, a series of Austrian shows were in the US and I felt
that though they represented an aspect of the Austrian artscene that there
was a vital international scene here that was not being seen or heralded.
Hence, The Red Thread. A cross section of Austrian born and also artists
who choose to live or spend time in Austria that were not on the Austrian
radar as such.
The shows opened almost simultaneously in NYC and a private gallery in
Seattle WA (on both coasts). The Red Thread was conceived as a fexible
platform presenting various aspects of Vienna art scene both conceptual
and physical. It its most recent incarnation at Dana Charkasi Galerie I took
a few artists from the original show and also looked back into the gallery’s
own history by including Joseph Bauer and Johann Fruhmann.
ST/A/R:
Your Paintings which are small quirky abstractions with bits of
lanscape references but also ‚painting about painting’ in the way
you are dealing with composition, brushstrokes etc.
Julie:
Painting is the most fundamental aspect of my work. I am interested in the
qualities of paint and painterly allusions to those qualities. Things that look
Fast being made slow, slow appearing fast and throughout that process
glimpsing back at the paintings own history of being made and paintings history
of becoming. The most recent paintings refer to landscape but all paintings
are landscapes or still lifes to some degree. I am interested in how we
live with art. Images that are grasped quickly or emerge over time and are
intended to be viewed at a certain distance away from the space of making.
Guston make entire paintings without walking away from the canvas. Created
at arms length, literally. One feels both the centrality of that experience literally
on the canvas and also that the image itself has a peripheral stance.
This physical experience before an artwork fascinates me as an artist.
ST/A/R:
...and the objects or „Wandgeiger“ which are sort of a deconstructed violin
re-assembled onto the wall and which can be played with a bow. Can you
explain how you came accross this idea and how its changed (or developed)
through the various versions which you have presented in Vienna, Belgrade
and most recently at 303 Gallery in New York.
Julie:
If painting, image making, is about space then music is about time. And
I have struggled to conjoin the two. To make an image that seems ideally
viewed at some distance necessitate a closer approach, a touch even. The
Wall Violins which originally came out of a perversion of the story of the Magic
Flute amputates the wing of the Vogelfanger’s bird. What may seem romanticized
or idealized actually has a bit of bloody stump at the end of the feather bits. The
Wall violins also plays the wall - the history of the building where it is installed, the
resonation of the architecture. It can also exist as a substructure over a wall. The
sound itself is more percusive than melodic though each instrument surprises
me. How much sound can emerge from a strung wall. The bridges suspending the
strings are based on actual stringed instrument bridges but I designed to mimick
mountains or fi re to create the tension to be played.