The Ghostly and the Golden

exhibition view Shame on you, Centre of Contemporary Art, Celje, 2015

The photo series and the film are conceived during the artist  working as an unregistered worker at the construction of a luxury design shop in the center of Vienna, in the part of the city center recently named The Golden Quarter.

For several weeks, the artist worked on the construction site together with the rest of the mostly male workers.

This engagement into concrete physical labor was the main source of income for the month, the 'black' money for everyday life as well as enabling the further development of the project.

 

 

 

The work exposes the conditions of labor and relations between different modes of work, the 'dead labor' of the workers on one hand and the zombification of labor of the cultural producers on the other, the relationship between the concrete physical work and the immaterial production of values.

By focusing on the representation of workers as mere reflections on the surfaces of marble-stone plates that define the aesthetics of the Golden Quarter, the photographic series and the film discusses many layers not only of disappearance and the comodification of public space but the labor within it as well.

 

 

Specifications:

Series of photographs, prints on Hahnemühle fine art paper, 1/3 + 2AP, framed

Video, HD, color, sound

 

Year: 2017

 

Exhibited:

Young Art Award, Hypo Noe, St. Polten

Shame on You, CAC Celje

In Hand, Pinakoteka, Vienna

 

Screenings: The Enigma of the New and the Modern, curated by Christian Kravagna, Mumok Kino, Vienna, 2015

Figurations of Solidarity, Movements of the Political in the Minor Cinema, screening at

Jura Sofer Saal, Hofburg, Vienna, 2016

 

Collection:

Generali Collection @ Museum of Modern Art Salzburg

Hypo Noe Young Art Collection, St. Polten

The Ghostly and the Golden

HD video, color, sound

Sound post production: Daniel Benedek

Color grading: Max Gurresch

Camera: Die Schwarzarbeiterin

Concept and editing: Luiza Margan

 

© Luiza Margan 2021