Markus Redl

In his first solo exhibition at Smolka Contemporary, Markus Redl presents drawings from four cycles and new sculptures that refer to one another and are linked to reflections on the title Exit_Safe_Space.

In the gallery space on Lobkowitzplatz, birds from the ‘Owl Cycle’ (in German ‘Kauz-Zyklus‘) gaze upon a portal, an 188 cm high drawing from the ‘Exit_Safe_Space – Cycle’. Where the door leads is uncertain, but it marks a boundary and creates an inside and an outside. Birds usually move through the air, freely across the borders of nations, land and water. Owls are silent hunters, the cats of the skies. Over time, they have been perceived very differently by humans. They were symbols of wisdom, just as they were regarded as harbingers of death and were therefore hunted and then nailed to front doors to ward off impending disaster. In this exhibition, the owls observe the portal as a boundary or perhaps an ‘exit’ from or to a potentially safe space.

Also on display are three stone sculptures titled ‘la borsa’, ‘Marsupium’ and ‘the safe’. ‘La borsa’ refers not only to a purse, but also to a bag and, in the financial context, to the stock exchange. The kangaroo ‘Marsupium’, with its pouch or brood pouch, is linked to ‘the safe’ and ‘la borsa’: The brood pouch protects new and growing life; the safe protects valuables that serve as safeguards for life; and the purse is the spatial vessel in which is gathered that which shapes our lives through the exchange of ‘values’. The three works form material and immaterial spaces associated with the desire for security. Yet inside the womb sits a royal child, whose future we cannot foresee; the stone safe cannot be filled, and the stone purse cannot be opened.

In sociology, a safe space is understood as an inclusive environment — that is, a sanctuary or protected social space for people who, as members of a group, share experiences of discrimination. Security and freedom are two places of longing, spaces of human desire, and they seem to be at loggerheads with one another. At times, the impression arises that the more far-reaching the efforts made towards security, the more far-reaching the restrictions on freedom become; and so the attempt to find a balance between these poles remains a tightrope walk of ongoing negotiations with an uncertain outcome.

The combination of “Safe Space” with the word “Exit” is particularly interesting as an exhibition title because it leads to an irresolvable uncertainty. “Exit” is, in itself, a multifaceted word. It means to go out; to bring something to an end; to leave a situation; or even the chance to turn one’s misfortune around and get to safety; it can also refer to the transition from life to death. The exhibition title “Exit_Safe_Space” requires an interpretation which, whatever the outcome, offers no certainty, because it cannot be clarified beyond doubt whether one is moving out of a safe space or into a safe space.

Markus Redl was born in Klosterneuburg in 1977 and is a drawer, sculptor and author. He initially studied psychology at the University of Vienna and then, from 1998 to 2004, at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna under Ingeborg Strobl and Erwin Wurm. He lives and works in Vienna.