Exhibition Subversive Characters A, B ,C ,D ,E ,F
22.6.2018–06.7.2018
Mz* Baltazar’s Lab, Wallensteinstraße 38–40/8, 1200 Wien
Opening Text by Lale Rodgarkia-Dara (sound artist and author)
“System Jaquelinde” means technology always remains in the background, in order to lend expression to its clear visual poetology. The two artists are thus pioneers of the aesthetics of kindness, which was commercialized years later by the hipster movements.
Pira Tin and Frances Cat have been working together since 2005 as “System Jaquelinde”. Their strong foundation is the clear design idiom, a commitment to typography and design that draws iconographically through the Upper Austrian sub-and later even European pop culture. They have been part of and shaping. Their art work is never losing its clear feminist and social position.
Diverse their activities. Stage design, film, teaching at the Kunstuni Linz, design, and workshops, music video (amongst others for Ms. Tomani, Parov Stelar) and multimedia installations.
Last but not least, they are a fix link between the lively Upper Austrian open source movement (with Servus.at, ...), collective art creation (backlab), social commitment, and design.
In their long-term project Subversive Characters they combine critical, alternative and sustainable tendencies and preserve them in the form of a charcter.In various European countries activists and subversive initiatives are tracked down to discuss existing ways of working and strategies in discourse.
Per country several people have been portrayed on the basis of personal items that are exemplary for their work. These objects are arranged in the form of letters (English: “characters”) and photographically recorded. The result is a series of letters that grows with each visited country and will eventually include a full set of latin font with 26 letters.The process-based work on the journeys is traceable through cinematic, photographic and textual documentation on www.subversive-characters.com. The individual letters are accompanied online by a textual description as well as further information about the person portrayed initiative.
In February 2015, as part of an artist residency in Tartu (Estonia), three subversive characters were portrayed in the form of an investigative artistic approach to the local subculture. Thus, the first three letters of the alphabet with A – a portrait of Siim Vatalin, B – Ilmar Part – and C – Fideelia Signe RootsAt the same time, artistic activity remains central as a form of communication, exchange and networking and thus removed from its purely aesthetic end in itself.
In the course of their exhibition in Vienna they portrayed the Willy*Fred house project – D, our collective Mz*Baltazar’s Laboratory – E, and grandmas against right – F.