Gerhard Lang (GER): SIMULACRA EX SPECULIS

Opening and Performance: Wed, Feb 28, 19:00
Venue: SCHAURAUM Angewandte
Admission free

Before the police can search for an unknown perpetrator, a facial composite has to be made of the suspect - as an identikit picture.  The police give every case a face and cautiously approach the unknown, the foreign or disconcerting. Since the early 90s, Gerhard Lang has been using an old identikit device of the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). With its mirror-assembly technique it can create up to four shots of a new face: the phantom image.

In 2000, at the invitation of Cathrin Pichler and Roman Berka of the museum in progress, Lang responded, with the assembly synthesizer, to the first right-wing conservative government coalition between the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) in Vienna by publishing the identikit image of The Government in the newspaper Der Standard.
<link http: www.mip.at creations transact-39>www.mip.at/creations/transact-39

In his performance with the identikit apparatus at the opening event, documenta-participant Gerhard Lang will explore new realms and spaces beyond the human face.

Gerhard Lang (*1963) studied in Kassel and London.
Exhibitions:  Venice Biennale, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, PS1 New York, Hayward Gallery London, Canadian Center for Architecture Montreal, MMKK Klagenfurt, documenta 14 Kassel.
He lives and works in Schloss-Nauses and London.

Curated by Ruth Schnell and Tommy Schneider

Image: Unknown, 1992, identikit picture from the series "Palaeanthropische Physiognomie" © Bildrecht, Vienna, 2018

<link https: digitalekunst.ac.at en schauraum _blank>digitalekunst.ac.at/en/schauraum/

<link http: www.gerhardlang.com>www.gerhardlang.com