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Hang by a Thread
Tanja Boukal, AT
Human beings are in the focus of my work – their interaction with surroundings and society, the way they deal with difficult situations. I am not interested in the details of their faces or their bodies. I am rather interested in what they are capable of when they happen to be in special life situations. I do not want to depict them as individual characters, but as representatives of mankind, who are willing to walk long distances to achieve goals. I give curtain calls to those who usually stay out of sight, those who are normally not in the limelight, but who nonetheless make a great impact through their quite often overlooked behavior.
Influenced by my education as a stage designer and embroidery artist, I have been working primarily in the areas of sculpture and installation since the mid-1990s. Since 2007, I have increasingly employed arts-and-crafts techniques such as knitting, embroidery, crochet, and sewing. Handicraft - for thousands of years known as the art of ordinary men and women, for me represents human creativity and joy of life, the desire to be remembered, to create something significant. These techniques help me to emphasize the importance of the portrayed people. For me, the feel of the materials is just as important as an installation that draws in beholders.
Tanja Boukal, born 1976 in Vienna, lives, thinks and works in Vienna, Austria, HBLA f. Fashion and Clothing Technology / Arts and Crafts, 1996 - 1999 Studies "Stage Design" at the Vienna Art School, 2002 - 2008: Head of the class "temporary interior design" at the Vienna Art School, since 2000 assistant at the Summer Academy Salzburg;
Main exhibitions:
2018: Leaden Circles Dissolved in the Air, Elgiz Museum, Istanbul, Turkey
2017: Threads of Connection, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, USA
2017: A World Not Ours / Part 2, La Kunsthalle, Mulhouse, France
2016: No one has any intention of building a wall, Kunstverein Augsburg, Germany
2016: A World Not Ours, Art Space Pythagorion, Samos, Greece
2015/2016: Demonstrating Minds, KIASMA - Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland
2014: What to Do When Hell Breaks Loose, AB Gallery, Lucerne, Switzerland
2013/2014: Political Correctness, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Austria
More information: www.boukal.at
