27. - 30.9.2018
Opening: September 26, 5 - 9 pm
Marx Halle, Karl-Farkas-Gasse 19, 1030 Vienna
Booth: G 11
viennacontemporary

How to play with words in visually perceptible object configurations is a recurrent theme in Alexander Viscio's conceptual artistic work. These constructions assume the most diverse forms within his oeuvre, initially forming a close connection with the body, then becoming like an installation, transcending beyond the body towards the object, only to turn the word into space.

In his artwork (a hexagonal object made in wood) created for Vienna contemporary Six ways from Sunday makes for a full week (2017/18), the artist's body gets enclosed by the object, almost merging into one unit with it. Six ways from Sunday makes for a full week will be the sixth edition of a continuous series of performative live installations called VAL / Vehicles for Another Landscape, first launched in 1999.

Viscio will enter the sculpture and traverse to each pod (6), using his body alone to rotate the object. The words "Six ways from Sunday makes for a full week" are cut into Braille in each side of the sculpture's 6 pods. These holes are reminiscent of the so-called "glory holes" in erotic peep shows and provide access into the object and what brings it to rotate. In fact they are the hand and foot holes for the artist to help navigate and allow minimum sight outside the sculpture.

A central moment in the oeuvre of Alexander Viscio consists in the poetic connection both in terms of image- and word-language, between the body and the object and the absurd playing with simple words pivoting around the transposition of puns and word fragments to a visual and performative layer, which is nurtured from a multi-medial formalistic vocabulary. Language is separated from its conventional reality and is re-contextualized into form.

Visitors come and go, observing his performance, chatting in between, be amused and fascinated, commenting on the spectacle, they have to give way to the rotating hexagonal sculpture, moving around it, finding somewhere in the fair-booth to linger. Viscio accentuates a subversive interplay of what we can see and cannot see and creates an unusual association between language, space, body and object. The object becomes an expression of communication, equipped with nonverbal language – until the end of the performance when the wooden object is left in the space.

With this VAL the reference is to the game of "Jacks" that include several small metal hexagonal objects 2cm sq. and a rubber ball. Viscio confiscates our childhood toys and safety devices and flips them into diabolical apparatus for devious fun.

for the performance video prototype "Six Ways from Sunday makes for a full Week" by Alexander Viscio click > here
more information about the artist > Alexander Viscio
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Special thanks go to the carpenter and his team
Tischlerei Zendron / Christian Zendron, 1030 Vienna

press release: Alexander Viscio | Six ways from Sunday makes for a full week
press photo 1: Six ways from Sunday makes for a full week, 2018
press photo 2: Six ways from Sunday makes for a full week, 2017, Performance documentation, photography / Baryt, 28 x 50 cm
press photo 3: Six ways from Sunday makes for a full week, 2018, Baryt, digital rendering, 30 x 30 cm, edition: 7 / 2 AP