With Ivane Antadze, Maxim Brezhnev, Regula Dettwiler, Christopher Frieß, Sofia Goscinski, Christine und Irene Hohenbüchler, Michael Jimenez, Teuta Jonuzi, Alevtina Kakhidze, Karl-Heinz Klopf, Isabella Kohlhuber, Luise Lutz, Gerald Nestler, Alisa Omelianceva, Doris Ortner, Lilli Pataki, Christiane Peschek, Miriam Schenkirz, Julia Schmidt, Flurina Schneider, Timm Ulrichs, Helen Weber, Janine Weger, Ramiro Wong, Gabriel Zinganel

When drawing leaves the classical plane of the paper, it enters the real environment, crosses boundaries, breaks out of the frame, literally falls out of it or becomes located in the middle of the edge, where it becomes possible to apply new formats, working methods and techniques, to further develop and redefine these. In the process of balancing out, transgressing or widening such borders or edges a kind of in-between emerges that eludes any distinct classification.

In the course of a workshop and seminar at the TransArts, Transdisciplinary Art department at the University of Applied Arts, the exhibition Mitten am Rand was drawn, written out and developed.

The artists of TransArts produced innovative methods to express their themes, adventurous and risky perspectives and compress complex thoughts. They did not draw in order to make sketches, but to create independent works.

They spit out charcoal, roll out their topics on a bedsheet, meander with somnambulant certitude directly over walls, drag their feet determinedly across the floor, go up to the ceiling, record selective perception. Black on white. They draw lines with wire instead of the pencil, integrate architectural elements that range from hard, soft and meticulous to gestural-expressive, from abstract-geometric to in-situ and performative. They make use of light, use darkness and overlay with intensive and delicate colours.

In Mitten am Rand the supposed limitation of perception moves into the centre, provides insight into TransArts’s practices and communicates the relevance of a course as an exhibition for an audience. With selected works by Regula Dettwiler, Sofia Goscinski, Christine and Irene Hohenbüchler, Karl-Heinz Klopf, Isabella Kohlhuber, Gerald Nestler, Christiane Peschek and Timm Ulrichs Mitten am Rand draws artworks by students into dialogue with those of established artists so that the exhibition space becomes a place of debate and investigation of differences, analogies and their transitional states.

Sabine Kienzer, Curator | Journalist, lives and works in Vienna