eSeL ABC feat. Edith Payer: The ÄEIÖÜ of the art business

eSeL ABC feat. Edith Payer
The ÄEIÖÜ of the art business
31.07. – 08.09.2024, 18h | eSeL REZEPTION

In 2024, eSeL REZEPTION invites illustrators and artists to ‘visually’ comment on 26 vocabulary words (from A-Z) from the art world using their individual methods (and always with a pinch of humour) together with eSeL.

For the summer exhibition, Edith Payer guides us through her jungle of art terms and adds the three umlauts Ä, Ö and Ü to the eSeL ABC, which was previously limited to 26 letters.
In addition to ‘A for ABSTRAKTION’ or ‘Z for ZAHLEN’, ‘ÄRA’, ‘ÖL’ and ‘ÜBERFÜLLER’ are annotated with Edith Payer's drawings and eSeL photos. (You can also look forward to the twofold exploration of ‘CANCEL CULTURE’, ‘MANGELWARE’, ‘TREND’ and - finally! - ‘ROUNDABOUT’!) . For every word agreed between the two, a wittily drawn ‘joke’ by Edith Payer enters into a productive dialogue with an eSeL photo (and a specially ‘faked art lexicon’ entry).
The (double) joke of the matter: Edith and eSeL and the audience will only be able to see for the first time how the two individual approaches, hung next to each other, reveal new references to the respective focussed ‘keyword’ at the SITE SHOW (on 30 July 2024, 18h).
The humour provides a healthy dose of distance to the quite idiosyncratic practices and contexts in the art field - but also to the power relations and economic imbalances at work within it.
Humorous drawings on postcards, posters, social media and in artists' books are just one method in Edith Payer's work, which draws attention to the all-too-everyday in a wide variety of media (from photo collections and textile works to whimsical sculptures, as well as her installations and interventions in urban spaces).
Collecting, sorting and arranging is staged on museum-like, sometimes mobile displays (often in collaboration with local residents) and attention is drawn to the act of producing and assigning value.
Most recently, eSeL was able to observe Edith collecting and sorting site-specific waste finds for her mobile ‘Museum of Mindfulness’ with the help of the neighbourhood (2023, Wohnpartner Wien / Rabenhof). In the process, Edith Payer and her helpers framed the incidental, regionally specific, overlooked and forgotten in a new way by citing and imitating institutional collecting (and the production of relevance) and adapting it to the context of the surrounding neighbourhood with a new focus in the mobile museum. With her catchy, seductive and serious lightness, Edith Payer succeeds all the more effectively in ‘raising awareness of the permanent ecological, economic and social crises’ (Klaus Bock) without falling into the glorifying exaggeration or pathos traps of contemporary art. Through her works, Edith Payer opens up the often invoked ‘new perspectives’ on the world and its social norms, forging appreciative new alliances between everyday life and art - together with people.

Edith Payer born 1975 in Wolfsberg, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, lives and works in Vienna and Redlschlag (Bgld.).

Image: eSeL ABC feat. Edith Payer: EXPRESSIONISMUS