The smallest gallery as a social media screen. Alicia Pawelczak showcases her Instagram posts live, thus revealing in a public space the contradictions and inconsistencies surrounding her online self-presentation.
With Alicia Pawelczak (AT/CH)
Curated by Karin Oberhuber (AT)
In an online statement the artist declares, both modestly and brazenly: “I don’t know how to put this but i’m Kind of a Big Deal.” The pictures published on her account are equally contradictory, thwarting the unwritten laws of Instagram according to which all subjects should be sufficiently illuminated and well-balanced in their composition. Pawelczak, on the other hand, presents us with blurred, trivial, underexposed aspects of her life; screenshots from the Net which require a fair amount of background knowledge to reveal their humour. Though her self-presentation is accessible worldwide, it can only be read by insiders. Pawelczak thus focuses on the intricate communicative structures deployed by contemporary subjects to present themselves online. What codes apply? Who is the audience? And where am I? The Net has superseded the body as a locus of self-reassurance.
It is all about virtual realities; about public and private spaces and the transitions between them; about viewpoints defined by constant change and the impossibility of distinguishing truth from fiction. And it is about the question of how outmoded such categorisations are today. The artist, who lives in Vienna and Zurich, uses her Instagram account to expand what is the smallest exhibition space into infinity.
Co-produced by steirischer herbst, the smallest gallery – collaboration space
