October 4 – 24, 2024
Tombola VII, ES49, Vienna, AT
with Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair
"She wished, finally, to gather all these experiences through the sense of sight and to confirm what she had only surmised. She now believed herself capable of illuminating this marvelous subterranean vault with her own light, and she hoped to become, all at once, fully acquainted with these strange objects." Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. “The Fairy Tale.” In Conversations of German Refugees (Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten), 1795.
Through his writings and research, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is considered a pioneer of perceptual psychology. However, few people know that he was nearsighted in one eye and had normal vision in the other. In optometric terms, this form of vision is called Goetheblick.
The image consists of two overlapping fields of depth, composed in the brain. The work Pars pro toto – Monovision depicts an eye that is neither left nor right. It floats—fixed to a tin can—centered in front of a disc with a radial, hypnotic black-and-white pattern. The painting’s strong contrast evokes a restless circular motion, while the flesh-colored eye object appears as an organic, yet immobile, body.
Can this eye see at all? And if so, is it looking outward—or inward?
The work is a collaboration between visual artists Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair and Wolfgang Obermair, together with their nine-year-old daughter, Hannah. The eye is a direct translation of a clay miniature she sculpted. The entire piece can be read as a social sculpture within a parental context. It reflects an ambivalence between observation and attention, grounded in both mythological and childlike ideas
Wolfgang Obermair & Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair
PARS PRO TOTO - MONOVISION
Gouache on wood, tin can, 3D print
2024
Tombola VII | ES49
Inauguration, 3.10.2024, 7 PM
Location:
ES49 Erdbergstraße 49, 1030 Vienna
With :
Bianca Pedrina & Martin Chramosta
Patrícia J. Reis & Fernando Mesquita
Saskia Te Nicklin & Steffi Alte
Leon Höllhumer & Philipp Pess
Daniel Rajcsanyi & Aurelia van Kempen
Cäcilia Brown & Maruša Sagadin
Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair & Wolfgang Obermair
Ines Hochgerner & Nino Svireli
Markus Proschek & Lukas Janitsch
Thea Moeller & Helmut Heiss
Michael Part & Bernhard Weber
Iris Andraschek & Hubert Lobnig
Markus Guschelbauer & Selina de Beauclair
Parastu Gharabaghi & Hélène Fauquet
Alexandru Cosarca & Manuel Cyrill
David Mase & Markus Benjamin Riedler
Laia Fabre & Katarina Spielmann
Julia Zastava & Lucas Henao Serna
ES49
Erdbergstraße 49, 1030 Vienna
October 4 – 24, 2024
Opening: Thursday, October 3, 2024, 7 PM
Midissage and dialog-tour between the artists and the organizers: October 17, 2024, 7 PM
Finissage and Zine Presentation: October 24, 2024, 7 PM
Tombola is an exhibition format initiated by Terese Kasalicky and Heti Prack. Teams of artists are invited to contribute their themes and media to a lottery pot, from which raffle tickets are drawn. The conditions for the artworks are determined by chance, and the resulting works are exhibited
@t.o.m.b.o.l.a
Wolfgang Obermair Dresdner Strasse 46/10 1200 Vienna / Austria