Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Art Awards 2019

Gabriele Edlbauer
Recipient of the Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Art Award New York

Artist’s Statement
To put it bluntly and sloppily summarized, my sculptures deal with humor, often with the bad. Puns (Running Susi, Imbiss you), Dad-Jokes (Blanche-Beige), pronunciation difficulties ([gabiː ‘ʊnt odiː’ fyːɐ̯ siː ‘]) and speculative claims (Quattro Formaggi: Primavera, Estate, Autunno, Inverno) usually strech from the title until the finished work. While many of the objects seem to be such conceptual lightweights that they might as well be floating atop noodle soup, upon a second look, a slightly deeper strategy could be rather intentional. One work strategy would be to tell things so wrongly that connections are established and a reality is approached, which may not be the whole truth, but works in its own logic.In Ad Reinhardt’s joke “Sculpture is something you bump into when you look back at a painting” I’m interested in the immediacy of objects. Studio-based work, my own physical-manual confrontation and curiosity with different materials and production strategies is often part of the sculptural narrative.

Karine Fauchard
Recipient of the Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Art Award Vienna

Artist’s Statement
In Art, I like to explore the laws (scientific, physical and poetic), that define our reality.My practice includes various mediums, painting, drawing, sculpture, installation, photography, video or mixed media. Materiality is the underlying theme in my work as well as the in situ pratice and the idea of process. I wish to offer to the spectator both an aesthetic and physical experience. Understanding painting, thinking the media painting by questioning the elements of an image, replaying, assimilating and transmitting codes, techniques as well as emotions.

Jury Statement 
Gabriele Edlbauer unanimously convinced the jury with her perfectly contextualized, but also very characteristic proposal for the exhibition space at the ACFNY. Her figurative-comic style / visual language, which combines both pop-cultural and even corporate elements with art-historical clichés, points to a cultivated indecision between affirmation and criticism, directness and distance, flatness and subtlety that constitutes her strength.

Jury Statement
Karine Fauchard’s work represents a daring and original positioning within the Viennese contemporary art scene, beyond any aesthetic trends. Over the years, she has made an essential effort to express her inner experience through the mediums of painting, collage and sculpture, with imaginative and sometimes unorthodox materials and methods.

This year again, the jury’s decision was made during a two-stage competition. Following a first round, which assessed the artistic quality on the basis of the submitted portfolios, 11 candidates were invited to develop a concept for the presentation at the ACFNY respectively in das weisse haus. These project concepts were then judged in a second round – including Alexandra Grausam (Director das weisse haus / studio das weisse haus) and Michael Haider (Director ACFNY).

Jury Members
Anne Faucheret, Curator Kunsthalle Vienna
Andreas Huber, Gallery Crone Vienna
Tim Voss, Artistic Director Künstlerhaus Vienna

Finalists for the Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Art Award New York
Maria Anwander, Simone Bader, Gabriele Edlbauer, Peter Fritzenwallner, Julian Palacz, Reinhold Zisser 

Finalists for the Erste Bank ExtraVALUE Art Award Vienna
Karine Fauchard, Lena Rosa Händle, Maureen Kaegi, Steffi Parlow, SKGAL