BOLDINO IV: PHILIPP FLEISCHMANN
This week we would like to introduce you to the artist Philipp Fleischmann.
Come and see two of his works: philipp fleischmann 2012 / 2013, twelve photographs, b/w, 10 x10 cm and philipp fleischmann 2012 / 2013 MATHIAS POLEDNA, DOMINIK LANG, MIRIAM BAJTALA, 26. Februar 2013, 19:00, Secession Wien, in the current exhibition: Transfers, at Charim Galerie, Dorotheergasse!
Exhibition views, Charim Dorotheergasse, photos: Hannes Böck
Philipp Fleischmann’s artistic practice can be situated in the fields of the fine arts and film. He is certainly interested in the institutional logics and mechanisms (sometimes different, often comparable) into which he repeatedly intervenes as a protagonist. Questions of access also play a key role. For his strategies replete with institutional critique, Fleischmann has developed a formal idiom that is completely bound to analogue film.
Philipp Fleischmann, Film Still, Main Hall (2013), 35mm Color Film, Silent, 5min 8sec
His works, such as those that were made in art institutions, picture these spaces via a photographical procedure and then transfer these into a filmic temporal sequence. In philipp fleischmann 2012/2013, the principle of the “gift“ is applied, when a 16mm film reel is left behind at openings or premières, thus initiating open-ended processes. This not only addresses institutional structures, but also the increasingly precarious process of making and distributing analogue film. (Naoko Kaltschmidt, Mumok)
Philipp Fleischmann, philipp fleischmann 2012/2013, Twelve Photographs, b/w, framed, 30,8 x 22 cm
In 2013, during the opening at the Generali Foundation in Vienna for the exhibition The Content of Form, curated by Helmut Draxler, Philipp Fleischmann left a roll of 16mm film with a colleague at the entrance, along with a note stating, “Exposed negative for processing.” At the time, I was an assistant curator at the Generali Foundation, and when I received word that some film had been dropped off, it was unclear to me whether it had anything to do with the current exhibition. Instantly, an evident uncertainty about how to respond to this unexpected “gift” emerged.
Philipp Fleischmann, Contact Print, Untitled (Generali Foundation Vienna) (2015), 16mm Color Film, Silent, 34sec
Given the identity of the artist, I felt it safe to assume that it wasn’t just any roll of film, that there was more to it. When I expressed this to Fleischmann, his response was cryptic; he merely said that the roll contained a film and that it was up to us to decide what to do with it. We weren’t aware until much later that what he’d given us was part of a larger project, and as a result, initially, the institution did nothing with it. Leading up to the closure of the Generali Foundation’s exhibition space in Vienna in 2014, it was decided that the roll should be processed and digitized. To our surprise, the footage showed the approach to the exhibition space, breaking off at the moment the camera entered it. (Georgia Holz, Art historian)
Philipp Fleischmann, Film Still, Austrian Pavilion (2019), 35mm Color Film, Silent, 4min 8sec
Philipp Fleischmann, Camera Sculpture for Austrian Pavilion (2019), Picture: Susanne Miggitsch
Philipp Fleischmann (1985, Austria) graduated in Vienna at the Academy of Fine Arts (Dorit Margreiter) and studied at the School for Independent Film Friedl Kubelka of which he has become the Artistic Director in 2014. Fleischmann’s work has been exhibited in film festivals and exhibition spaces, among others: Secession Vienna, Austrian Filmmuseum, Berlinale Forum Expanded, Toronto International Film Festival, Mumok Vienna, Belmacz Gallery London or the MACRO Museum in Rome. In 2021, Fleischmann will be presenting a new commissioned work at the 34th São Paulo Biennial curated by Jacopo Crivelli Visconti.
Catalog Main Hall:
Interview with Philipp Fleischmann: