INES DOUJAK. HERA

venue: Carlone Hall at Upper Belvedere

Ines Doujak. Hera
01.03.2018 - 23.09.2018

Ines Doujak starts contemporary cycle “Carlone Contemporary” in the famous Carlone Hall at Upper Belvedere

Hera by Ines Doujak represents the first in a series of contemporary positions that will accompany the permanent collection redisplayed in the Upper Belvedere starting on March 2, 2018. These works will be shown in the famous Carlone Hall on the ground floor of Upper Belvedere and will play off the mythological frescoes within the space. In a six-month rotation format, artists will develop their perspectives in harmony with the frescoed hall’s Baroque aesthetic, bridging the world of gods like Apollo and Diana from antiquity with the present day. The Carlone Contemporary Cycle is curated by Stella Rollig, artistic director of Belvedere, Vienna.

Ines Doujak’s HERA is an ironic statement on female representation in our society. The ancient goddess Hera is commonly known as the wife of Zeus, guardian of hearth and family, as well as a betrayed spouse. At the Upper Belvedere, however, she will be observed from another point of view. Larger than life, she kneels on a table with her blouse pushed up, plucking out a hair from her chin. We are presented with an intimate moment, accentuated by the smell of frankincense emanating from an opening in her body, the pleasing aroma of which seems to be the only sign of her divinity. The intimate and private nature of Doujak’s heroically-sized sculpture is diametrically-opposed to the typical representation of such Olympian gods. Unfazed by the viewer’s gaze, she is completely occupied with herself, engrossed in a mundane, human beauty ritual. Doujak’s work addresses socio-critical questions regarding standards of gender, social norms, and stereotypes. With pointed political accuracy, it also leaves room for irony and a subtle sense of humour.

Belvedere permanent collection redisplayed
The Belvedere’s extensive collection covers art from the Middle Ages to the present, including the world’s largest collections of paintings by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller and Gustav Klimt and the Character Heads by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. From March 2018, the Upper Belvedere’s new display concept shall offer fresh approaches to these masterpieces of art. The concept includes innovative thematic rooms, interspersing the chronological hanging through the periods of art and sparking a multi-layered dialogue between the classics of art history and contemporary artists, for example Erwin Wurm and Christian Philipp Müller. The rooms revolve around questions concerning Austrian history, its identity, and its art. In this exciting interaction between past and present, old favourites can be rediscovered in a new context.

About the artist
Ines Doujak, who participated in documenta 12 in 2007 with her piece entitled Siegesgarten [Victory Garden], works mainly in the realms of photography, installation, and conceptual art. Born 1959 in Klagenfurt, Doujak lives and works in Vienna.

The intervention entitled Hera by Ines Doujak will open the evening of March 1, 2018 in the Upper Belvedere alongside the new presentation of the permanent exhibition, which will redisplay famous artworks of the Belvedere collection such as Gustav Klimt’s Kiss (Lovers) or Egon Schieles, Embrace. The second Intervention at Upper Belvedere 2018 will be created by David Zink Yi and will be presented on October 5, 2018. David Zink Yi began working with ceramic as early as his student years. Working with this material, the process of transformation is never predictable and always contains an alchemical element. Within the frames of Carlone Contemporary at Upper Belvedere, he will present on of his squid sculptures.