Georg Vith

 Waiting for pictures

Biography

Born in 1959 in Schruns, Austria

1980-1985 studies at Akademie of fine arts in vienna (Prof. Maximilian Melcher and Edelbert Köb)

1985 award from austrian federal departement of science and research

since 1986 several prices and purchases in different competitions

2004 Bahnhof Andelsbuch

Inari Kultahovi, Inari, Finland

National Museum of Stockholm, Sweden

KHG Graz, Austria

2003 Museum of perception, Graz, Austria

Artmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz, Liechtenstein

Palm Tree, Montserrat, Westindies, United Kingdom

Via Cairoli, Florence, Italy

Boat view, Mälardrottningen, Stockholm, Sweden

Burren College of Art, Ballyvaughan, Ireland

Viewbox 03, Turun Kristillinen Opisto, Turku, Finland

2002 Out of focus, Art university of lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland

Caprice des dieux, Albert Borschette Centre, Brussels, Belgium

Zimmer 22, Silvrettahaus, Bielerhöhe, Austria

2001 Nähe-Ferne, Klaus, Austria

Archive 2000, ABF-Mikroverfilmung, Feldkirch, Austria

Inside-Outside, Chios, Greece

Edmund Kalb, Schillerstraße 22, Dornbirn, Austria

Inside-outside, Art university of lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland

2000 Dialog der Dinge, Studio Drehpunkt, Bregenz, Austria

Die Originalität des Gewohnten, Gallery of Künstlerhaus, Klagenfurt, Austria

1999 42x68 68x68 im k&k, St. Johann, Carinthia, Austria

1998 Project inside-outside, Silvretta, Austria

1996 & co, Theater am Saumarkt, Feldkirch, Austria

1995 Zeichnungen, Salvator Gallery, Graz, Austria

Kartografie des Unscheinbaren, Bildungshaus Batschuns, Austria

2004 Deutsch-Russisches Begegnungszentrum, St. Petersburg, Russia

ICH, Transformerhaus, Bregenz, Austria

2003 V. I. G., Graz, Austria

Druckgrafik, Pässler und Schlachter, Lauterach, Austria

30 Jahre Palais Liechtenstein, Feldkirch, Austria

La Tentation, Schloss Amberg, Feldkirch, Austria

2002 KunstVorarlberg, Palais Liechtenstein, Feldkirch, Austria

2001 Kunstraum, Dornbirn, Austria

2000 Palais Thurn & Taxis, Bregenz, Austria

1999 Kunstforum Montafon, Schruns, Austria

Silvrettatelier, Siechenhaus, Bregenz, Austria

1998 Spiel mit den Wirklichkeiten, Saumarkttheater, Feldkirch

Palais Thurn & Taxis, Bregenz, Austria

1997 17. Internationale Malerwoche, Suetschach, Carinthia, Austria

Bildungshaus Batschuns, Austria

1996 Tenneale Nenzing, Austria

Kunst im Millenium, 9 Künstler aus 9 Bundesländern, Neuhofen an der Krems, Upper Austria

6 Künstler aus Vorarlberg, Ragenhaus, Bruneck, Italy

1995-1984 numerous exhibitions in Innsbruck, Bozen (I), Vienna, Nenzing, Klagenfurt, Lienz, Bregenz,

Feldkirch

The eye is not a camera but an instrument very slowly registering everything, an instrument the work of

which is satisfied with things gone before and things to come. Work, which in itself has a strange time,

structure and is taking place in a certain time. (B. Busch).

The cameras you can walk inside of which are part of Vith’s work of perception since 1998 appear

as the same slow instrument. Their work of finding pictures simply takes time.

A completely darkened room, which only permits, punctured light to come in combines after

longer waiting different levels of visibility. It creates from at first almost invisible positions a network of

visible fragments. The interior and exterior world form a connection, open up questions for the viewer and

therefore create a level of being. The visitor of such a camera is invited to initially wait for ten to fifteen

minutes in order to take in the slowly appearing picture. And only then to realise how very slowly an

upside down picture of the exterior is coming down to the interior. The room and also the blank eye are

being captured by a gradually forming picture, which creates a direct relationship to the surroundings.

The skin like picture which has covered the interior changes itself gradually but ongoing through

the movements of the sun and therefore through the incidence of light. Glances move along these changes,

capture stories about the inside and outside in the form of dialogues. But the glances also move over the

interior of the viewer, the camera creates a new horizon of reason. (G. Anders). The rooms offer a broad

scope of discovery and tell stories in different forms, determined by time, place and situation, the viewer

develops into a discoverer of his own perception.

The continued incompleteness is a state of work because an extreme focus of the pictures is only

roughly possible: the smaller the hole through which the rays of light can enter the sharper the picture

appears to the viewer. At the same time it becomes weaker and disappears. A bigger opening allows more

light to come in and the picture becomes blurred.

The principle of the camera is the sign of the New Time, of the central perspective discovered in

the Quattrocento, which constituted a change of pattern of society. David Hockney describes the growing

mechanization of the sensory perception starting in the 15th century in a relevant book. He talks about

many painters who at that time started using optical means such as mirrors, lenses or a combination of both.

With those they produced true to life projections of pictures in order to create paintings or pictures. This

new process of capturing the world in pictures spread out quickly and changed the view of reality. (D.

Hockney)

The principle of sharpness and blurredness can also be found in the works, which the artist creates

by using his drawing cameras, which he built himself. The casing of the camera obscura is a device placed

between the perception and its projects like a messenger of a sensory experience.

At the same time the smooth surface of the ordinary becomes broken, the blurredness of our

perception falls back on us – we puzzle insecurely over which abstract object faces us in the sketches and

withstands our stereotyped views. The drawings in credit card format are cartographies of the

inconspicuous and interrupt the daily routine the already too long pause in our thinking. (R. Tiefenthaler).