À l’endroit et à l’envers du temps/ we’ve got time

Antoine Donzeaud

At Georg Kargl Permanent, Vienna

Curated by Alexandra-Maria Toth

March 6 – April 16, 2020

All works of art are like a window open to creation; a kind of transparent screen is mounted in the window frame; through this screen, objects appear more or less distorted, as they undergo greater or smaller changes in their lines and colors. These changes depend on the nature of the screen; thus, creation is no longer credible or realistic, as creation is transformed by the medium through which the image passes1. In Salinger’s Teen Novel, Zooey2 looks out the window and watches a little girl playing with her dog. He says: „There are nice things in this world, we are all such morons to get so sidetracked”. The window appears as a vantage point to gaze into other people’s (beautiful) lives. In Emma’s3 house, the window is tantamount to a screen, where she can project her fantasies (which shall never turn into reality); a dissociation; a tie between the external space and the interior space; two sides; two perspectives; a facial expression reflects in the window glass, while a view outside turns into an expectation; „There it was before her – life”. To the Lighthouse4; a family observes as the days pass and their lives develop through a window; outside the window; a distant object – apparently unobtainable, reveals yearnings, frustrations and desires; the sun sets; days go by; images, impressions and sentiments remain as fragments of the past and sometimes the present. There is no window without a story; for the window is an architectural work of art, that stores memories and tells different sides of one particular story. There is no window without a screen; a certain gaze or a plain glass is always in between; a created separation; as time passes, the window becomes a symbol for contemporary longings and memories of past days; a cracked screen; a broken window; capable to reveal one’s inner feelings; sometimes hidden behind a bunch of curtains, that once belonged to a (familiar) home.

Alexandra-Maria Toth

1 cf. Naomi Schor (1969): Zola: from window to window.
2 cf. J.D Salinger (1961): Franny and Zooey.
3 cf. Gustave Flaubert (1856): Madame Bovary.
4 cf. Virginia Woolf (1927): To the Lighthouse.
Antoine Donzeaud, À l’endroit et à l’envers du temps / we’ve got time, 2020 Exhibition view, Georg Kargl Permanent, Vienna
Antoine Donzeaud Chandelier, dans le genre, 2020 MDF, stainless steel, glass, spray paint, hardware. Variable dimensions
Antoine Donzeaud Le chemin du pèlerin, 2008 DV cam, 5’19’'
Antoine Donzeaud Fenêtre sur l’aube ou le crépuscule, 2020 Oak, glass, spray paint, brass. 86 x 65 cm
Antoine Donzeaud Résistances affectives forever, 2020 Postcard collage, vintage frame. 22 x 15 cm
Antoine Donzeaud The house that was, 2020 Spatial cut-out, cotton, wood. Variable dimensions
Antoine Donzeaud Contemporary emo, 2020 Postcard. Edition of 100

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