Markus Schinwald

The psychological engagement with space and the body, uncanniness and unease, lack as well as the irrational depths of individual and collective being are themes that run through the work of Markus Schinwald (born in 1973). The starting point here is the human body in all its imperfection. In Schinwald’s photographs, sculptures, and film using borrowings from the performative arts, such as theater and dance, they become the projection surface for psychologically-charged interior worlds that permanently seek an outlet for expression and manifest themselves there. With subtle interventions, attributes, and manipulations, like vague apparatuses and prosthetic accessories, the apparently fixed bodies are given a disturbing physical surface. The scenarios that Schinwald develops follow no linear narration with beginning and end, but circulate obsessively and repetitively around a thematic center. These stagings, on first glance minimal and cold, condense to form a complex web of effects that allow for several possibilities and stories that feed on our collective memory.

Most recently the works of Markus Schinwald have been on view at Kunsthaus Bregenz (2009), Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich (2008), London’s Tate Modern (2007), or Kunsthalle Wien (2007). His works are included in prominent collections such as Tate Modern, Vienna’s Belvedere, MUMOK, ARC Musée d'Art Moderne, or Migros Museum.