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Details of object number: 244294
Title:Arkadien I (original title)
Number of parts:2
Object name:Photography
Collection:Kunstankauf, Abteilung Deutsche Kultur
Created by:Hopfgartner, Irene (artist) (Bruneck, 1986-09-25)
Production date:2014
Description:Two photographs from the series “Arkadien I”. Depiction of mossy lichen with valve, entitled “Dritte Blütezeit der Staubtrichterflechten [Third blooming period of the stamen lichen]” (Edition 2/3) and a stuffed robin on a round grassy base entitled “Rotkehlchen [Robin]” (Edition 3/3). Signed on the back in black felt-tip pen in the bottom right: “Irene Hopfgartner, 2/3”, “Irene Hopfgartner, 3/3”.
Hist. crit. notes:Irene Hopfgartner’s artistic work questions our view of nature and exposes its domestication and staging. Her photographic works, objects and installations confront us with the artificiality of a human-made environment. The photographs of mossy lichen with a valve and a stuffed robin on a round grassy base are reminiscent of a scientific presentation or the displays of plants and animals in museums. (Günther Oberhollenzer, in “Arbeiten. Lavori in corso II [Works in progress II]”, Bozen 2020, p. 98)
In her installations and photographs Irene Hopfgartner concerns herself with the representation of nature and the staging of the natural. Our conceptions of naturalness are based on a cultural construction. Deliberate interventions in nature, its forming and taming, have over the centuries shaped our environment. The manipulation of nature, of flora and fauna, is so extensive that we accept the rearranged environment as the original, the natural.
This among other things reflected in scientific representation, in natural history museums, and the imitation of natural forms for our toys or for our image world.
The recording, examining and illustrating of nature on the one hand helps us gain knowledge, while on the other ascertaining and representing the hierarchy between humans and nature. Musealisation, the keeping of articles and artefacts, retains the idea of overcoming transience and alienation. A stuffed animal is for example a sort of sculptural copy of the live animal: on the one hand an object to study or view, on the other a hunting trophy. The dead, wild animal becomes a domesticated item of decoration. Hopfgartner again and again uses stuffed animals in her work, as a transformation of the alive, as an illustration of the artificialness of the “natural”. Is this a representation of nature or a staging of the natural? Referring to the artificial interventions in nature is attended by the nature of the artistic as form of appropriation and domestication. (Christina Nägele, in „Panorama. Neue Kunst in Südtirol. Arte nuova in Alto Adige“, Bolzano/Bozen 2012, p. 78).
In her installations and photographs Irene Hopfgartner concerns herself with the representation of nature and the staging of the natural. Our conceptions of naturalness are based on a cultural construction. Deliberate interventions in nature, its forming and taming, have over the centuries shaped our environment. The manipulation of nature, of flora and fauna, is so extensive that we accept the rearranged environment as the original, the natural.
This among other things reflected in scientific representation, in natural history museums, and the imitation of natural forms for our toys or for our image world.
The recording, examining and illustrating of nature on the one hand helps us gain knowledge, while on the other ascertaining and representing the hierarchy between humans and nature. Musealisation, the keeping of articles and artefacts, retains the idea of overcoming transience and alienation. A stuffed animal is for example a sort of sculptural copy of the live animal: on the one hand an object to study or view, on the other a hunting trophy. The dead, wild animal becomes a domesticated item of decoration. Hopfgartner again and again uses stuffed animals in her work, as a transformation of the alive, as an illustration of the artificialness of the “natural”. Is this a representation of nature or a staging of the natural? Referring to the artificial interventions in nature is attended by the nature of the artistic as form of appropriation and domestication. (Christina Nägele, in „Panorama. Neue Kunst in Südtirol. Arte nuova in Alto Adige“, Bolzano/Bozen 2012, p. 78).
Material:paper
Technique:fotografiert (Farbfotografie)
Dimensions:
- je height: 75 cm
width: 50 cm
gerahmt je height: 77.5 cm
width: 52.5 cm
depth: 4 cm
Physical description:C-Print, gerahmt
Keyword:Still life