Steinbrener / Dempf & Huber
Steinbrener / Dempf & Huber is an artist group consisting of the sculptor Christoph Steinbrener, the photographer and graphic artist Rainer Dempf and the architect Martin Huber. Their work repeatedly caused a sensation.
Act
Public projects and exhibitions
In 2005, as part of the Delete! in Wiener Neubaugasse all commercial signs such as shop signs or advertising posters are wrapped in yellow. The subsequent copy / paste project series went the opposite way: advertising, company logos and PR ads were explicitly made visible here, but shifted contextually and intentionally incorrectly placed, for example in 2007 when the Ursuline Church in Linz was apparently converted into a Starbucks branch ( Pass the Buck ). In 2008, the Jesuit cosmos Andrea Pozzo's ceiling painting in the Jesuit Church in Vienna disappeared under a contemporary and secular sky construction. The method of displacing led to the Trouble in Paradise exhibition, realized in 2009 in Vienna's Schönbrunn Zoo , in which Steinbrener / Dempf & Huber installed foreign objects (cars, toxic waste barrels, railroad tracks) in the animal enclosures, thus addressing the confrontation between nature and civilization.
The exhibition Freeze! Opened in June 2012 . in the Natural History Museum Vienna is the attempt to exchange the romanticizing view of the depiction of animals for a realistic view of today's conditions of growing civilization. Steinbrener / Dempf are revitalizing an old scientific display instrument, the diorama . In collaboration with the taxidermists at the museum, they show snapshots of wild animals in an urban environment that are otherwise only known from Internet videos or exotic travel reports.
In 2015, they applied an ibex to the head of the 43-meter-high Bismarck monument in Hamburg, thus addressing the resurgent German nationalism - the title of the work: “Capricorn Two”.
In 2016, the Viennese artists' collective opened the two widely visible "Commentaries" on the architecture of their city, the sculptures "Sign of the Times" (on the facade of the Hotel InterContinental ) and "Lunch Atop" (on the roof of a Vienna skyscraper) almost simultaneously .
To be in Limbo, Jesuit Church, Vienna 2014
Freeze
Trouble in Paradise
Jesuit cosmos
Delete!
"Sign of the times" (2016)
Studio work
Steinbrener / Dempf & Huber have produced series of large-format photographs in recent years. On the one hand, there are images of dioramas that were created in collaboration with the taxidermists of the Natural History Museum in the Steinbrener / Dempf & Huber studio. On the other hand, there are carefully arranged still lifes with animals that follow the classic Flemish model of the 17th century, as well as so-called animal pieces , which focus exclusively on the figural representation of prepared animals and combine zoologically incompatible things through staged gestures and postures.
They also developed their so-called “miniature dioramas”, which also function as three-dimensional sketches.
Animal piece
Still life
Still life
Catalogs, films and other publications (selection)
- Kasimir, Paul and others : Wolfgang Zinggl, Galerie Niels Ewerbeck , Vienna 1993.
- Duke Ellington and other samples : Nieglhell, Seyfarth, Triton Verlag, Vienna 1996.
- Heads : Rainer Fuchs, Peter Assmann, Ulrike Sulikovsky, Johann v.Rauch, Christian Scheib u. a., Triton-Verlag, Vienna 1997.
- Capricorn company : Hans Ulrich Reck, Christian Reder u. a., Triton-Verlag, Vienna 2001.
- Operation Figurini : Exhibition newspaper with articles a. a. Erika Weinzierl, Anton Pelinka, Rainer Fuchs, Martin Prinzhorn, Catrin Pichler, Vienna 2002.
- Operation Figurini - documentary film, director: Erwin Wagenhofer; Production: Allegro-Film, Vienna 2003.
- Delete : Siegfried Mattl (ed.), With contributions by Karl-Heinz Stierle, Tom Holert, Chantal Mouffe, James Donald, Bernhard Kellner, Klaus Theweleit, Orange Press, Freiburg 2005.
- Delete - documentary film by Erwin Wagenhofer, 2005.
- Trouble in Paradise : Sculptures in the enclosures of the Schönbrunn Zoo, with contributions by Ernst Strouhal, Dorothee Bauerle-Willert, Dagmar Schratter and others. a., Orange Press, Freiburg 2009.
- Who owns the city, Vienna - art in public space since 1968 : Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg, 2009.
- Parabol # 6, Don't dare ': Section a , 2011.
- Cartographic thinking : Christian Reder (ed.), Edition Transfer at SpringerWienNewYork, 2012.
- Public Art Vienna, Aufbruch - Werke - Interventions : Roland Schöny (ed.), Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg, 2012.
- Beware of art: Politics meets art - On the relationship between political and cultural education : Anja Besand (ed.), Federal Agency for Political Education, 2012.
- Three in Blue - Art and Faith : Gustav Schörghofer, Residenz Verlag, 2013.
- Salon of Hope : Nikolaus Schaffhausen, Austrian Presidential Chancellery / Kunsthalle Wien, 2013.
- Here & Now I Hic & Nunc - 900 years of Klosterneuburg Abbey : Klosterneuburg Abbey (ed.), 2014.
