INES DOUJAK
SALE
2 February to 21 May 2018
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INES DOUJAK. SALE
2 February to 21 May 2018
The Large Hall of the LENTOS is transformed into a fashion store! The
Austrian artist Ines Doujak presents her highly unusual fashion collections.
The exhibition space mutates temporarily into a changing room: visitors are
welcome to touch, try on and take pictures.
Citing and at the same time calling into question the glamour of the fashion
world, Doujak s works are characterized both by their determined criticism and
their beauty. The artist brings into play the exploitative structures and the
gender and class order hardwired into haute couture and the garment industry
and deliberately blurs the demarcation line separating fashion statement and
art.
Ines Doujak reckons with the intrinsic power of images in developing her own
compelling formal language. In doing so, she combines elements of collage
with historical and political research, as the exhibition’s curator, LENTOS
director Hemma Schmutz, points out.
The exhibition "Ines Doujak. SALE "offers art to touch and try on. The LENTOS
becomes a place where visitors can experience works of art in the truest sense
of the word. Anyone who has the curiosity and the courage to try things out,
expects an exhibition experience outside the norm, says Doris Lang-
Mayerhofer, cultural councilor of the city of Linz, enthusiastic about the
concept.
The focus is on textile workers burnt to death in their factories, on total
exhaustion as the lot of men and women in the low-wage sector, on dirty
secrets, animal and human skins, Carnival and masquerade, drugs, war and the
devil himself. Motifs and themes are directly inscribed on the textiles as carrier
material. Fabrics, patterns, garments and accessories as well as texts,
publications, objects, videos, dance interludes and pieces of music deal with
the links between fashion, colonialism and globalized relations of production.
The show at the LENTOS lays claim to a great deal of the museum s available
space, from the foyer and the stairwell to the Great Hall on the upper floor. It
comprises altogether seven collections, dating to the years 2012 to 2018, that
address the dark side of the fashion industry. The exhibition s opening day will
see the video work A Mask Is Always Active (part of the Carneval collection)
projected on to the museum s façade.
The exhibition is based on Loomshuttles / Warpaths, an artistic-scientific
research project that has already been going on for many years. The project
includes Doujak s eccentric archive , which traces the history of globalisation
on the evidence of textiles from the region of the Andes. For this purpose, the
archive also enlists the service of an open-ended series of posters, sculptures,
performances and texts, which is very much a work in continual progress.
Having initially committed herself to the analysis, handling and processing of
existing materials, Ines Doujak then proceeded to developing her own
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materials and having garments fashioned from them. Parts of this steadily
evolving fashion collection were already on display in the exhibition Not
Dressed for Conquering at Stuttgart s Württembergischer Kunstverein and in
Masterless Voices at the Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art in Kracow.
The exhibition at the LENTOS is accompanied by the publication of
Loomshuttles, Warpaths. An Eccentric Archive 2010–2018, with texts in English
by Ines Doujak and John Barker, produced in collaboration with the
Württembergischer Kunstverein.
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WORKS
The Devil Opens a Night School
(Foyer, Main Hall)
A tent made from a specifically designed material, the pattern of which
consists of bleeding horses, rotting grapes, and scorched wood, serves as the
location for the devil s night school. The pattern on the screens and on the
items of clothing is reminiscent of drops of blood. In the video installation the
devil opens a night school to teach the secrets of success and failure. The
circulating school began in the Ukraine and in Spain, countries in which crisis,
violence of profit, and the resulting collapse are directly felt. The business of
war and drugs is shown through the figure of the devil, in his many forms and
names.
Carnival
(Passage between the main hall and the collection, Main Hall)
To confuse rather than hide: In WWI the British Navy painted wild geometric
shapes on thousands of ships to protect them from submarines. The pop-up
store as well as the dolls are covered in the same camouflage patterns. In
some cultures body movements, film, and song are often directly translated
into patterns on textiles, in which the colors go to war with each other, or are
at least in conflict. Held up by a musical off-beat these patterns shake the
fringes and seams, which they see as an expression of an order that must be
broken , says Doujak.
The video A Mask Is Always Active is a musical on carnival, utopia, and
rebellion. It begins with a singing mountain, that was first scaled by
European explorers on the backs of indigenous porters. The mountain has had
enough of the robbery of its riches and the exploitation of the humans working
inside it. And so the mountain begins its jour e to the car ival … Ownerless
voices sing unforgiving songs in the darkness. Some people regret that they are
not dressed to conquer. A brazen researcher, sometimes naked, sometimes
clothed in camouflage, blends with the carnival folk like a group of Dança do
Ombrinho dancers.
Fires
(Main Hall)
Images of flames, chains, and naked human bodies are printed onto bales of
cloth and onto clothing. Burns and burn wounds are a daily part of life for
seamstresses in textile factories in so-called low-wage countries. In order to
keep up with the extremely tightly calculated time schedules, voluntary
over-time is the norm, and in some cases the factories gates are simply locked.
However, the image of fire is not only used metaphorically for the textile
factories that go up in flames due to missing security standards or the burn-out
of the modern-day wage-slaves. It is also a reference to the workers who set
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the factories or even themselves on fire in protest. The 22-year-old textile
worker Chun Tae-il set himself on fire in 1970 in protest of the blatant
exploitation of the mostly female textile workers in the industrial area of
Seoul. We are not machines! he called out as he burnt. The audio file in the
exhibition contains an interview with his sister, the union activist Dr. Chun
Soon-ok.
Dirty Secret
(Main Hall)
Various patterns can be seen on the items of clothing and notebooks displayed
in the pop-up store. The stories behind these patterns were literally woven
into them. In the context of an long-term artistic research called
Loom Shuttles, Warpaths, Doujak investigated the interplay of textiles,
clothing, and colonialism. The artist collected woven, knitted, or embroidered
textiles from the Andes. In that area textiles have a very high significance.
Textiles from that region are shaped by an imperialist history, by oppression,
and by resistance: In the midst of the sharply cut black square the dirty secret
of thousands of years of patterns can be found , as Doujak says.
Booklets entitled Fatal Obstacles or Dangerous Elegance critically remind us of
the colonialist past.
Transport
(Stairwell, Main Hall)
The installation Transport consists of multiple parts: wooden boxes, various
objects (e.g. a necklace on which the conjuror s rabbit is chained that
deconstructs the fiction of comparative advantage in free trade (Doujak),
collages that show porters, and a collection of bags). Images of porters are also
printed on the bags. In many parts of the world cargo is often still transported
by human porters – despite the possibility of using various mechanical
equipment. Due to free trade agreements, low transportation costs, and
technical development in logistics (such as bar codes or container ships),
textile production is becoming increasingly globalized. Retail chains and
fashion brands intentionally look for low-income areas for their production.
Kriminalaffe
(Main Hall)
The items of clothing, as well as a number of objects, such as a folding screen
and a rocking chair, are covered with prints of monkeys and humans found on
the internet. A shawl printed with the words Class Hatred hints at the
connection of social origin and racialization. People with darker skin are
portrayed as monkeys – modern racism has its own iconography. F. W. Taylor
also claimed to see a comparison between human beings and monkeys, in that
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he described workers in 1911 as intelligent gorilla , who try their best to do
as little as possible, without it being noticed . The title Kriminalaffe is taken
from the children s book Kasperglück und Löwenreise by Janosch. The
Kriminalaffe sees how he is turning into a monkey the more he imitates
himself.
Skins
(Main Hall ceiling, Annex Room)
The series Skins is centered around collages made from extracts of historical
botanical boards and atlases on skin diseases. Fantasy creatures are created by
combining illustrations of disease symptoms, drawings of inner organs, but
also representations of animals. Not least of all, the sicknesses refer to
European colonization, where the Europeans brought diseases with them into
the colonies killing hundreds of thousands of indigenous inhabitants. A
sculpture carrying a bouquet of psychedelic plants casts a shadow on the
collages hanging on the wall. It is a reference to a time of colonial expansion, in
which ecstatic altered states of mind were banned in European society. The
ceiling of the main hall is covered in a textile pattern, the space left free is the
shape of a human skin, defining the exhibition space.
Looters
(Main Hall)
The paper-maché figures wear camouflage pants, vintage sweaters, hoodies,
or face masks, and by doing so they are being true to their name. They steal
and present themselves as militant. Some of them could not care less about
bourgeois etiquette as shown by their obscene gestures. The protest against
the capitalist system led to a radicalization in the case of these looters. The
question is raised, who decides who can consume, and who can t? Who has
the right to judge the poor? Who steals from whom, and who can afford to live
within the limits of the law.
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BIOGRAPHY
Ines Doujak, born in Klagenfurt in 1959, is a graduate of the Hochschule für
angewandte Kunst in Vienna. In addition to the fashion industry, the artist
examines in her conceptual work stereotypes in the fields of gender roles and
racism.
Solo exhibitions (selection)
2017 Masterless Voices, Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of Contemporary Art,
Krakow
2016 Not Dressed for Conquering, Württembergischer Kunstverein,
Stuttgart
2015 Not Dressed for Conquering, Johann Jacobs Museum Zurich
2007 Ines Doujak, Galerie Krobath, Vienna
2005 Dirty Old Women, Salzburger Kunstverein
2002 Father Ass, Vienna Secession
Group exhibitions (selection)
2018 4th Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh
2017 The Conundrum of Imagination. On the Paradigm of Exploration
and Discovery, Leopold Museum, Vienna
Stealing from the West, Academy of the Arts of the World, Cologne
2016 Peace-Treaty, San Sebastian (Cultural City of Art)
Sans peau / No Skin, SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, Montreal,
QC
2015 School of Kiev, Kiev-Biennale
All Men Become Sisters, Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz
Die Bestie und ist der Souverän, MACBA (Museu d Art
Contemporani Barcelona), Württembergischer Kunstverein
Stuttgart
wow! Woven? Entering the (sub)Textiles, Künstlerhaus. Halle für
Kunst und Medien, Graz
Share – Too Much History, More Future, Museum of Contemporary
Art Banja Luka
2014 Ejemplos a seguir! Expediciones en estética y sostenibilidad, Museo
Metropolitano de Lima, Lima
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Utopian Pulse – Flares in the Darkroom, Vienna Secession
31ª São Paulo Biennale
Exampels to follow!, Zollverein, Essen
Ten Million Rooms of Yearning Sex in Hong Kong, Para/Site Art
Space, Hong Kong
2013 54th October Salon. No one belongs here more than you, Belgrade
Cultural Center, Belgrade
Acts of Voicing, Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul
2012 re.act.feminism #2. A Performing Archive: Fundación Antoni
Tàpies, Barcelona; Museet for Samtidskunst, Galerija Miroslav
Kraljevic, Zagreb
Acts of Voicing, Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart
Busan Biennale 2012, Busan, South Korea
Reflecting Fashion, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig,
MUMOK, Wien
2010 Principio Potosí (Das Potosi-Prinzip): Museo Nacional Centro de
Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin;
Museo Nacional de Arte La Paz, Bolivien
Trienale Linz 1.0, Contemporary Art in Austria, LENTOS
Kunstmuseum Linz
2008 Peripheral Vision and Collective Body, MUSEION, Bozen
2007 documenta 12, Kassel
2004 Be What You Want, But Stay Where You Are, Witte de With,
Rotterdam
Die Regierung. Paradiesische Handlungsräume, Vienna Secession
2003 How do we want to be governed?, MACBA (Museu d Art
Contemporani Barcelona)
Being in the World, Miami Art Central, Miami
2000 Things we don't understand, Generali Foundation, Vienna
Erlauf Remembers…, Erlauf
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Austrian Science Fund
Doujak received two research grants from the Austrian Science Fund
Loomshuttles / Warpaths (2010-2014), an extensive study of textiles to
investigate their global history characterized by cultural, class, and gender
conflict ; and Utopian Pulse: Flares in the Darkroom (together with Oliver
Ressler 2013 -2015) which resulted in an exhibition in the Secession, Vienna
(2014) and a publication (Pluto Press, London).
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PROGRAM
EVENTS
BLUE PRINT WORKSHOP DEVIL'S FOOD
Sunday, 29 April, 10 am – 4 pm
Ban unique patterns in blue print on fabric. Get to know the blue dyeing of
fabrics with the Zeugfärberei Gutau and try it yourself. The workshop also
includes the lecture Devil's Food.
Costs: € (including admission fee), max. 15 participants, registration at
[email protected], T 0732 7070 3601, at the latest one week before the
appointment.
LECTURE DEVIL’S FOOD
Sunday, 29 April, 2 pm
Ines Doujak and John Barker will give a lecture on the cultural background and
history of the color Indigo, in German and English.
open to the public, free admission for lecture-visitors (admission fee for the
exhibitions not included), no registration required
GUIDED TOURS
PUBLIC GUIDED TOUR
every Thursday, 7 pm
duratio hour, costs € , e clusive ad issio , ger a o l
additional Dates:
Sun 4 & 11 February, 4 pm
Tue 6 & 13 February, 4 pm
GUIDED TOUR WITH THE CURATOR
Thursday 22 February, 7 pm
with Hemma Schmutz, german only
FLASHLIGHT GUIDED TOUR
3 February, at 4 pm
i e glish, duratio Mi , € , o ad issio fee
GUIDED TOUR FOR DEAF MUSEUM VISITORS
Saturday 5 May, 4 pm
with sign language interpreter
admission and guided tour free for deafs
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PRESS IMAGES
Press Images are available for download at www.lentos.at/presse
Free use of press images only in conjunction with the relevant
exhibition.
Ines Doujak, Looter, exhibition
view Masterless Voices (detail),
Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of
Contemporary Art in Krakow,
2017, photo: Studio FilmLOVE
exhibition view Masterless
Voices, Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of
Contemporary Art in Krakow,
2017, photo: Studio FilmLOVE
Ines Doujak, from the series
Skins, 2017
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Ines Doujak, from the series
Skins (draft), 2016
Ines Doujak, Untiteld, 2013
Ines Doujak, Transport, fabric
design (detail), 2014
Ines Doujak, Looter, exhibition
view Stealing from the West,
Academy of the Arts of the
World, Cologne, 2017
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Ines Doujak, John Barker
The Devil Opens a Nightschool,
2015, video still
Ines Doujak, John Barker,
A Mask is Always Active, 2014,
video still
exhibition view Masterless
Voices, Bunkier Sztuki Gallery of
Contemporary Art in Krakow,
2017, photo: Studio FilmLOVE
exhibition view Ines Doujak.
Sale, LENTOS Kunstmuseum
Linz, 2017
photo: maschekS.
exhibition view Ines Doujak.
Sale, LENTOS Kunstmuseum
Linz, 2017
photo: maschekS.
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exhibition view Ines Doujak.
Sale, LENTOS Kunstmuseum
Linz, 2017
photo: maschekS.
exhibition view Ines Doujak.
Sale, LENTOS Kunstmuseum
Linz, 2017
photo: maschekS.
exhibition view Ines Doujak.
Sale, LENTOS Kunstmuseum
Linz, 2017
photo: maschekS.
exhibition view Ines Doujak.
Sale, LENTOS Kunstmuseum
Linz, 2017
photo: maschekS.
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Exhibition Title INES DOUJAK. SALE
Exhibition Period 2 February to 21 May 2018
Opening Thursday, 1 February, 7 pm
Press Conference Thursday, 1 February, 10 am
Exhibition Venue Foyer, Stairwell, Main Hall
Curator Hemma Schmutz
Exhibits fabrics, cuts, clothes, accessories, texts, texts,
objects, videos
Publication The exhibition is accompanied by the publications
Warpaths. An Eccentric Archive 2010–2018 (price:
€ ) with texts by Ines Doujak and John Barker
published by Spector Books and the fashion
magazine SALE. In English Language. In
cooperation with the Württembergischer
Kunstverein Stuttgart.
All publications can be purchased in the LENTOS
Shop or at lentos.at/shop
Exhibition Architecture Mateusz Okonski
Opening Hours Tue–Sun 10 am to 6 pm, Thur 10 am to 9 pm, Mon
closed (except 2.4. und 21.5.2018)
Open on public holiday 1.4., 1.5., 10.5. and
20.5.2018
Admission € , co cessio s € 6
Press Contact Clarissa Ujvari
Tel. +43(0)732/7070-3603
Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1
4020 Linz
Web & Social Media lentos.at
facebook.com/lentoslinz
twitter.com/lentoslinz
instagram.com/lentoslinz
#lentosdoujak
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