Pirmin Hagen and Christine Katscher: hand luggage

March 16-April 21, 2018
Opening Reception: March 16, 7-9pm

Open Source Gallery presents hand luggage, a collaborative project by Pirmin Hagen and Christine Katscher.

Pirmin Hagen and Christine Katscher are interested in the necessity of communication in collaboration and the misunderstandings that come with this that can help shape the process and outcomes. Art is often a difficult thing to communicate in words, which can make cooperation difficult. Hagen and Katscher usually work individually and though they have collaborated to create Druckwerk, an open access printing workshop and exhibition space in Austria, the duo has not yet collaborated on an exhibition of their own, personal work. The artists describe artistic collaboration as a sort of foreign language problem: while ideas can be communicated across languages, nuances and context are often lost. Looking forward to the experimentation and unexpected results that collaboration can bring, the artists will create hand luggage at Open Source.

For hand luggage, Hagen and Katscher will not bring finished artwork to New York, but will instead create instructions for how to set up the exhibition. The artists will create plans and maps to create instructions for assembling hand luggage at Open Source. In preparation for the exhibition, the duo will follow the instructions they’ve created to set up test installations at Hagen’s studio in Austria using materials sourced from Druckwerk and local stores. Hagen and Katscher are interested in how the concept will transform when it is created at Open Source: What different materials do local shops in Brooklyn have that will change the project? How will the new space and atmosphere affect the project? How will audience–and artist–reactions change?

Embracing unpredictability and experimentation, Hagen and Katscher aim to create a project that evolves over time into something that neither artist could do–or even imagine–alone.

Pirmin Hagen studied landscape architecture at the University for Applied Life Sciences in Vienna and fine art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and the Marmara University in Istanbul. His work, which is based on drawing, printmaking and the observation of things and processes, has been exhibited in various places, including Kunstforum Montafon (Schruns, A) Galerie allerArt (Bludenz, A) Patriot Hall (Edinburgh, GB) Hagen is the co-founder of the open access printmaking studio, Druckwerk in Lustenau, A.

Christine Katscher has studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and in Nantes, France. After her graduation she has worked for one year at Edinburgh Printmakers and is now based in Dornbirn, Austria. Since her return to Austria she has set up the open access printmaking studio Druckwerk in Lustenau. Her work has been shown at Bilbao Arte (Bilbao, SP), Künstlerhaus München (Munich, G), Künstlerhaus Bregenz (Bregenz, A), Whitespace Gallery (Edinburgh, GB) and many other places. Christine is a co-founder of Franz the Lonely Austrionaut, a magazine for narrative drawing. Katscher is the co-founder and artistic director of Druckwerk.

Pirmin Hagen and Christine Katscher: Hand Luggage | Press Release | Installation view