With the column as a fundamental element and representative form Maruša Sagadin uses a classical architectural fragment as a starting point of her encounter with the architectural space at Künstlerhaus in Graz. The caryatids (greek: “maidens of Karyai”) are female sculpture figures, which replace the columns in architecture and present the bearing symbolical role in a representative sense. Maruša Sagadin and Marlies Wirth will speak within the context of the exhibition about responsibility, self-empowerment, visibility, entertainment and pain of architecture and bodies.
Maruša Sagadin (*1978 in Ljubljana, lives in Vienna) studied architecture at the Technical University of Graz before switching to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna studying performative arts and sculpture. In addition to some awards, she has completed a one-year ISCP Residence in New York in 2016 and was granted a MAK Schindler House research scholarship in 2009–10.
Her recent exhibitions include New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) New York, Christine König Gallery in Vienna, SPACE in London UK, Syndicate in Cologne, the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York and London, Kunsthalle Wien, Room of Requirement/Horse & Pony Fine Arts in Berlin, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Ljubljana. In 2016, her monograph © MMXV, designed by longtime collaborator Christian Hoffelner and published by Verlag für Moderne Kunst, was a finalist for Schönste Bücher Österreichs 2016, a prize for books made in Austria from any discipline.
Marlies Wirth (*1980, lives in Vienna) is a curator and art historian based in Vienna and has been active at the MAK – the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art since 2006. As the Curator for digital culture she has a key role in the programming of the VIENNA BIENNALE and heads the MAK Design Collection. She is part of the curatorial team for the international travelling exhibition “Hello, Robot. Design between Human and Machine” (2017, a cooperation of Vitra Design Museum, MAK and Design museum Gent) and was named co-director for the 12th Global Art Forum in Dubai themed “I am not a Robot” (2018).