Samuel Seger
SAMUEL SEGER born in 1982 in Lörrach, Germany. Based in Vienna, Austria. CURRICULUM VITAE ACADEMIC EDUCATION 2015 Mag.art., Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Diploma with Honors 2012-2015 Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Sculpture and Space Strategies, Prof. Monica Bonvicini 2012 B.F.A., Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design, Kiel 2008-2012 Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design, Kiel, Sculpture/Installation/Spatial Conception, Prof. Elisabeth Wagner PRIZES / SCHOLARSHIPS 2018 Start-Stipend, BKA (Office of the Federal Chancellor), Vienna, Austria 2016 Honorary Prize, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria 2015 Prize of the Lenikus Collection, Vienna, Austria 2011 Gottfried Brockmann Prize, City of Kiel, Germany 2011-2015 Artist Funding, German Academic Scholarship Foundation
EXHIBITIONS (selected) 2018 Beitrag zum zeitgenössischen Konkurs - Lokalfragmente, FOE, Munich, Germany (solo) 2017 Beitrag zum zeitgenössischen Konkurs, Vol.3, site-specific project, Vienna, Austria (solo) Beitrag zum zeitgenössischen Konkurs, Vol.2, site-specific project, Vienna, Austria (solo) Beitrag zum zeitgenössischen Konkurs, Vol.1, site-specific project, Vienna, Austria (solo) 2016 Is my head a hotel?, Betakontext, Berlin, Germany DEUX SWIS No1, Galerie 21, Hamburg, Germany 2015 FASSADE, Showroom Lenikus Collection, Vienna, Austria (solo) Untersuchung, die, Kunstraum B, Kiel, Germany Our Hands Are Feet, Theatre Impermanent, Leipzig, Germany 2014 Pocket of Resistance, FLUC, Vienna, Austria Quarantine Media Extract, Moscow Biennale for Young Art, Moscow, Russia Quarantäne 5, National Center for Contemporary Art, Jekaterinburg, Russia Muthesius-Preis, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Germany 2013 Dialog-Trialog, Museum Biedermann, Donaueschingen, Germany 2012 Preview, Berlin, Germany (artfair) CLOSER, Galerie Gentscher, Hamburg, Germany Quarantäne 2, Kulturdeich, Hamburg, Germany Sixpack, Alfred Toepfer Stiftung, Hamburg, Germany 2011 Gottfried Brockmann Preis, Stadtgalerie Kiel, Germany Fixing Broken Windows, Gallery Q, Kopenhagen, Denmark Das alte Rein-Raus-Spiel, Neuer Saarbrücker Kunstverein, Germany (solo) 2010 South of No North, Entree, Bergen, Norway 2009 Works, 126 Gallery, Galway, Ireland WORKING EXPERIENCES since 2016 Stone Sculptor, restoration of stone objects, St.Stephen s Cathedral in Vienna, Freelance work for metal construction 2013-2015 Student Assistant, metal workshop, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna 2011-2012 Student Assistant, sculpture workshop, Muthesius University of Fine Arts and Design 2004-2008 Stonemason education and employment
Beitrag zum zeitgenössischen Konkurs/Contribute to Bankruptcy 2017-2018 architectural intervention 6 rooms, total space-size: 9,7 x 9 x 4,5 m diverse materials (i.a. wood, metal, bricks) in cooperation with Bartholomäus Kinner
Beitrag zum zeitgenössischen Konkurs/ Contribute to Bankruptcy An abandoned brothel in Vienna became our working environment in the beginning of 2017. The space was especially interesting because of the architectural changes that had been made to structure it for its recent purpose. The generous rooms had been divided into smaller units and the 4,50 m high ceilings had been lowered considerably. All the interior and furniture was still in place. The hereby given plentitude of traces of work, the context of the sex work and the characteristic style of craftsmanship that constituted this space for its use became the starting point for our own artistic work. Over the duration of six months we carried out many architectural alterations. We basically worked only with the materials given on site in form of furniture, ceilings and walls made out of plasterboard, wood and gas concrete blocks. The evolving objects and spacial modifications restructured the six rooms as a sculptural environment. We arranged this process in three phases, each one ending with an exhibition opening in the space which from the outside still looked like the old nightclub.
To encounter the space with its implicated meanings as a place for prostitution by a sculptural and space related approach allowed us to add another form of labor to it. The transparency of our interventions and the extent of the spacial dimensions gave the installation a performative undertone which held it in suspense between a playful dealing with abstract forms and the harsh, concrete reality of materials and the traces of manual work. The double meaning of the word studio as a term for an artists working space, but also used to name brothels and nightclubs was decisive for reflecting the modes of production of the artist studio and its ambivalent isolating quality. Following the three exhibitions we performed a transfer of selected sculptural elements into a gallery space in Munich. We detached these elements from their strong context and presented them as an independent group of works. Only a small artist book delivered information about the background of the installation. We used this exhibition, to delocalize our undertaking, to carry out a final transformation and to consequently dissolve it.
Beitrag zum zeitgenössischen Konkurs, exhibition views at gallery FOE, Munich, 2018
The Moon s Dark Race 2015 conceptual sculpture/installation original fragments of a sculpture by Austrian artist Bruno Gironcoli (steel and plastic), steel joints and screws app. 420 x 640 x 235 cm
The Moon s Dark Race The work is settled around the reconstruction of a sculpture by Austrian artist Bruno Gironcoli. The pieces in question are fragments of a model for the sculpture Wir Villacher Kinder / We Children of Villach, that was build between 2003 and 2004. It was constructed of steel and polyester and was painted silver. The model had been cut into pieces during the process of mould-making when the sculpture was cast in aluminium. I found the 19 remaining fragments in the yard of a metal-casting workshop where they were about to get scrapped, approximately 10 years after they had served to create the negative molds for the cast. I designed and manufactured special joints and applied them to the fragments, so they could be reassembled by screw connections. The visible joints deliver traces for the viewer, necessary to capture the action that was performed to re-erect the structure. Although the pieces fit together again, the created framework does not reconstitute the original state of Bruno Gironcolis sculpture. While the surface of his works is usually smooth and closed of, the reassembled sculpture has a rugged surface (created by weathering and former treatment) and evokes the impression of wastage and incompleteness. All of the figurative elements that were originally applied to the work got lost. I built up the structure in Bruno Gironcolis former studio in the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna where he lived, worked and taught for over 20 years. Due to the conditions of its making and re-making, the sculpture constitutes a new work that points out concerns about labor and authorship while addressing the notion of the framework.
The Moon s Dark Race, process images construction drawing for metal joints
Pentagram For FLUC-Club, Vienna 2014 site-specific installation/art in public space fluorescent adhesive tape on concrete ceiling app. 220 x 1600 cm A site-specific installation in a Viennese Music Club located in a former pedestrian subway. Fluorescent tape was applied to the concrete ceiling of the subway and the iconic sign was perspectively distorted so it could be seen in undistorted proportions only from the entry of the club. The work is located directly under a highly frequented crossroad.
Discount Geometry 2014 stainless steel, paint five parts, each 83,5 x 65,5 x 29 cm
Discount Geometry The work is based on the package design of a HARIBO cardboard box. I put the focus exclusively on its formal characteristics of color, folding as a principle of form and the seriality of the product. Regarding these qualities, I produced five metal objects that are identical in their shape. Their number corresponds with the five colors of the original box-design. The process of dividing a graphic design into its singular layers of color evokes the use of a digital method and makes the objects appear in some way virtual. The form of the objects shows a state in the process of folding/unfolding that is in between the flat cardboard and the final box. The objects are exhibited as wall pieces which address the viewer frontal in order to create a situation that emphasizes the subject-object-relation applied in minimal-art. By ignoring its representational characteristics, the work balances between abstraction and representation in a kind of pseudo-formality. detail source material
Whatever It Takes 2011 video projection 2:36 min The video captures a simple action. A person enters one object and emerges from another. The setting and camera perspective are chosen in a way that make it seem like a splitscreen video montage was applied, suggesting two seperated places being shown. In reality the video was shot in one take and the hidden part of the act was performed outside the eye of the camera. The sound track gives a hint to this fact.
Volumes 2011 objects/installation (group of 8 parts) found objects, safety glas, adhesive tape
Volumes, detail views
Maneuver 2012 video projection 6:30 min A video of a man balancing and sliding on his motorbike whilst moving slowly in circles. The action leaves ephemeral marks on the wet ground and becomes even more distinct by the continuous repetition.
Robot Rorschach 2014 29 collages, adhesive tape on paper 42 x 49,5 cm each A series of collages that was produced by putting stripes of adhesive tape on paper, cutting the paper and rearranging the pieces to new patterns that can trigger associations related to pop-cultural icons, clothing design and architecture.
Eiladung / Egg Load 2010 architectural intervention floorboards, ladder, neon light, chicken in cooperation with Johannes Flechtenmacher We altered an exhibition space by displacement of some of its characteristic primary elements. The lighting was taken down to the floor after the floorboards were widely pulled out and shifted upwards to create a wooden shack that could be entered through the main door. Inside the dark shack was a ladder that could be climbed to get an overview of the space. Alienated from the unreal scenario of a chicken moving around in the revealed building rubble, the viewers had to remain in an observer s perspective. The installation was staged as a one-evening event. Eventually the chicken lay an egg.
Handsome Boy Printing Club 2009 video (8:00 min), 7 intaglio prints on paper in cooperation with Patrick Wagner Metal printing plates were treated in experimental actions and printed afterwards. These automatic drawings and the documentation videos were presented in a contrasting juxtaposition as two different methods to capture an action.
Handsome Boy Printing Club, videostills and corresponding prints