Christian Eisenberger: OXYTOCIN-(P)UREX-EI

Opening Friday February 1st 7-9PM

Galerie Opdahl is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Austrian artist Christian Eisenberger in Germany. In much of his work, Eisenberger is interested in re-framing a mixture of icons in unconventional scenarios, to disrupt their existing stability. For this exhibition, he applies the term ‘heroes’ generically to certain structures which seem beyond our reach or out of our control; such as the hormone Oxytocin, the uranium energy company UREX, and the reproductive egg - each refered to in the exhibition’s title.

The video work,06.08.2007, is set on a bustling ant’s nest in a forest in Austria. The ants are feasting on the sugar cubes laid down by Eisenberger, in an arrangement that references Peter Eisenman’s design of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. Both homage and intervention, the video allows associations between nature, history, and scale, where each are as potentially monumental and overwhelming as the other.

The main gallery features numerous sculptural works which continue this interest in nature, progress, and trandscendence. Figures made from adhesive tape have been cut open to give the appearance of either insect cocoons or Egyptian mummies. Regular human hair has been combined with snippets of hair from significant Austrian artists to form a human figure, lying down on the gallery floor. Such references to the potential of (in)compatibilities are connected to Eisenberger’s belief in the malleability of iconic figures.

The works featuring Marlboro cigarette packets are a humorous response to the rigidity often associated with the Abstract Expressionist’s agenda. Here the plastic packaging of the cigarette boxes serves as a canvas for an ‚action painting’ made by the grasshoppers that were enclosed inside. The notion of the classic in design and branding is considered here by Eisenberger, along with a recognition that the maintenance of such iconic structures requires more than the bold confidence (‘Veni, vidi, vici’) of a product slogan.

Eisenberger’s ‘smoke paintings’ feature both figurative and geometric forms, in a playful depiction of the way artist’s have traditionally attempted to work with ephemeral materials and new, unconventional media. This experimentation appears as sincere as it is cynical, against the presence of Kippenberger’s egg and Malevich’s black square. But these shapes reveal as much about their point of reference, as do the names of a famous city such as Moscow or an artistic ‘movement’ – each identifiable but remaining at a distance.

Christian Eisenberger
OXYTOCIN-(P)UREX-EI