Julia Hohenwarter
Architecture and space are not just a backdrop, but they colour and affect the body.
Hohenwarter grew up in a house designed by her father, for their family. From an early age she understood the intimate connect between our bodies and the space they inhabit, how space can shape a person and how that relationship evolves, often in surprising ways. Space therefore is not only a backdrop, but a substance, which can colour and affect the body, be worn, transited, held, and resisted. Hohenwarter’s installations and sculptures extend from the territory of a woman’s body, from where she explores the borders between the social, public, and virtual spaces we inhabit. Diverse materials such as steel, glass, fabric, and sound, are chosen for their latent precarity. The volatility of these substances is what appeals to Hohenwarter, who evokes the fragility of our built reality and to let the material, in its use of space, demonstrate the perpetual and reciprocal change of our surroundings.
Hohenwarter’s works may at first glance appear on one plane, only to surprise and suddenly reveal a totally other dimension.
Hohenwarter’s works occupy multiple scales, from mounted sculptures, engravings and prints to large-scale installations. Sometimes, as in Skirting Board, they become a seamless part of their surroundings, highlighting the relationships between parameters of space in a site-responsive way: the wall, the floor, the corner. As architecture defines how we move, as do our clothes, noted by Hohenwarter through her work Power Dress. Here, she combines waxed steel and linen cord, creating an evocative armour held together by magnets. Power Dress is questioning who are the powers that govern our movement and position in the built world. Carving out feminist spaces is a primary concern of Hohenwarter’s. In her work She is too much, engraved prints depict handwritten notes and quotations, allowing the words to grow spatially, through a repetitive, rigorous process employing layers of parallel lines to build shading. Repetition is often seen as a feminine enterprise, but Hohenwarter calls for the disruption of this ideal. The viewer must move around to decipher the typography, creating a piece of performative production from what at first glance appears two-dimensional.
Text by Constance Chester
Space is my partner.
Space itself not only becomes invisible but disappears entirely behind the creation of a seductive surface.
Biography Julia Hohenwarter
born 1980 in Vienna, Austria
Education
2004-2011 Performative Arts and Sculpture at Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria
2010 Timebased Media at Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, Denmark
1999-2007 Architecture at Technical University Vienna, Austria
Exhibitions (selection)
2022
HANDSPELLS, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
2021
CLOSER, efes42, Linz, Austria (SOLO)
G, ve.sch kunstverein, Vienna, Austria (SOLO)
2020
NEUE BÜFETTS, Horizontal20, carinthija20, Austria
2019
DIE LIEGENDE - SHE IS TOO MUCH, artist statement Parallel Vienna Art fair 2019, Austria (SOLO)
2017
ALL WHITE, gärtnergasse Vienna, Austria (SOLO)
SIDE EYES, The Tip, Bangkok, Thailand
2016
LOS ANGELES, MAK Schindler House, Los Angeles, USA
TTL (TOKYO TEMPORARY LIBRARY), Austrian Cultural Forum Tokyo, Japan
2014
NEW WAYS OF DOING NOTHING, Kunsthalle Vienna, Austria
2013
IS MY TERRITORY, Galerie Christine König, Vienna, Austria
2012
REFLECTING FASHION, Mumok Vienna, Austria
2012
COME TO DISRPUTION, Acadia Missa London, UK
UTOPIE GESAMTKUNSTWERK, 21er Haus Vienna, Austria
2011
WIENER GLUT, KIT - Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf, Germany
Prizes/Residencies/Scholarships
2023 Artist in Residence Stipend for Margate, United Kingdom, from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Art (for the year 2024)
2020 Austrian State Grant for Visual Arts by the Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria
2016 MAK Schindler Grant, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles, USA
2016 Fellowship and Residence in Tokio by the Arts and Culture Division of the Federal Chancellery of Austria, Japan
2014 Prize for Fine Arts by the Province of Carinthia, Austria
2014 Fellowship and Residence in Rome by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture, Italy
2012 Fellowship and Residence in Paris by the City of Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, France
2011 Rölfs Partner Artist Grant, Germany
Teaching
2018-2020 Assistant Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria - Department for Conceptual Art
2017-2018 Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria - Department for Performative Arts & Sculpture
2015-2016 Assistant Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria - Department for Performative Arts & Sculpture
2013-2015 Assistant Professor at the University for Arts and Designs Linz, Austria - Department for Sculpture & Transmedial Space
Works by Julia Hohenwarter
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Power Dress #2
2017 / Waxed steel, stainless steel magnets, waxed linen cord / Dimensions variable
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Power Dress #2
2017 / Waxed steel, stainless steel magnets, waxed linen cord / Dimensions variable
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Power Dress #2
2017 / Waxed steel, stainless steel magnets, waxed linen cord / Dimensions variable
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after BOND (1)
2022 / Soot pigment and distemper on athletic mesh fabric, steel / 59.5 x 37 x 4 cm / 23.4 x 14.6 x 1.6 in
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Imagine a Way of Inhabiting Spaces as if they were Shared Expressions of our Way of Being in the World
2021 / Manual gravure print and soot pigment on paper, steel, glas, blacksmith coating, aluminium / Dimensions variable
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Sig-
2017 / Metal, varnish / 9 x 53.5 x 0.2 cm / 3.5 x 21.1 x 0.1 in
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Sig-
2017 / Metal, varnish / 12.5 x 60.5 x 0.2 cm / 4.9 x 23.8 x 0.1 in
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Sig-
2017 / Metal, varnish / 9.5 x 52 x 0.2 cm / 3.7 x 20.5 x 0.1 in
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Shutter
2019 / Manual gravure print and soot pigment on paper, glas, acrylic glass, steel, reinforcement grid, blacksmith coating / 100 x 520 x 4 cm / 39.4 x 204.7 x 1.6 in
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She is too much
2019 / Manual gravure print and soot pigment on paper, steel, glas, blacksmith coating / 63.5 x 44.5 x 4 cm / 25.0 x 17.5 x 1.6 in
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She is too much
2019 / Manual gravure print and soot pigment on paper, steel, glas, blacksmith coating / 63.5 x 44.5 x 4 cm / 25.0 x 17.5 x 1.6 in
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She is too much
2019 / Manual gravure print and soot pigment on paper, steel, glas, blacksmith coating / 63.5 x 44.5 x 4 cm / 25.0 x 17.5 x 1.6 in
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Fury
2021 / Manual gravure print and soot pigment on paper, steel, glas, blacksmith coating, aluminium / 142 x 667 x 7 cm / 55.9 x 262.6 x 2.8 in
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Joy
2021 / Manual gravure print and soot pigment on paper, steel, glas, blacksmith coating, aluminium / 142 x 66.7 x 7 cm / 55.9 x 26.3 x 2.8 in
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Skirting Board
2022 / Paint and wax on wall, polished / Dimensions variable