Philipp Timischl

Philipp Timischl combines and recycles images and text fragments from various sources such as tv-series, advertisements and conversations and connects them with personal imagery and paintings in installations, which are reconfigured from one exhibition to the next. His works occur in different formulations, densities and media, changing their identity while drifting between various contexts and settings. They often behave like frequently copied files which progressively lose volume and information such as their origin.

For his exhibition at Vilma Gold, titled “2”, he’s showing a new series of sculptures, each consisting of two objects which can be seen as autonomous people facing each other in a sort of dialogue situation. Like in his previous works, where he combined elements such as flatscreen monitors and paintings on top of each other, he now too involves his imagery in reciprocal relationships. Consisting of basic elements such as image, frame and plinth, they imitate anti-theft antennas as often seen in shops, libraries or Duty Free at airports, regulating the transition from one territorial zone to the other. Control, desire and communication are equally addressed.

In their emptiness the images in Timischl’s Work resemble stock-photos and the text fragments he chooses are similarly generic. In contrast to that he uses a small picture of a drag queen and an appropriated silver earring with the abbreviation “masc”, both of which are more specific and hint at identity and its fluid construction. In this sense one could also further see the other, less distinct imagery, as hinting at non binary figures and styles. These ideas are underlined with titles such as “Dysfunctional Setup”, “Significant Other” or “High 5 and Low 5”. Timischl is less interested in individual images or their specific statements, but more so in their movement, correlation and the in-between. His images are constantly changing their reference system and are activated while floating between in out, front back, positive negative and the presence and absence of their form.

The works are not locked into these oppositions like a closed circuit, on the contrary they rather open up the communication towards the viewer. When the audience steps between the two elements of these anti theft antennas, the discrete communication in the magnetic field of sender and receiver gets disturbed, forcing the alarm to start or respectively the system to mobilize. In a metaphorical sense this means: the image isn’t static. It’s a correlating situation, forming countless constellations.
Translated from german

Text by Anette Freudenberger