Dämmplatten, 2023

The exhibition sink by Heinrich Dunst addresses various principles of the aesthetic and artistic production of the present day, as well as their forms and processes. A number of objects and linguistic references are combined with one another and displayed. The works on show all stand alone and are to be seen as autonomous, but together they also form a group of methods that can be summarized as a kind of toolbox. The sequence in which they are presented here is just one of a number of options for approaching and understanding this exhibition, showing howthe idea of this project slowly unfolds before us and how references and cross-references develop between the two galleries and the various works.

The wall in the passage leading to the foyer is covered with pink Austrotherm boards. This material is here shown as material with no further interventions on the wall, so that the material itself and each single board have the quality of found readymades. These boards are completely synthetic industrial products manufactured non-stop in enormous quantities and used in many buildings, with a large influence on the practices of building and architecture today. They are used for insultation in both new buildings and in renovation projects to improve the heat-saving qualities of existing walls. Although they are so widely used, these boards and their influence on our everyday lives are little-known, as they are not made visible in buildings but rather disappear behind the facades of fillers and paint. Dunst’s use of a number of these boards in their original colors makes this high-tech material visible while still retaining a gesture of lowtech simplicity. It is this quality of making visible and being able to see the material in isolation that enables the work Dämmplatten (Insulation Boards) (2023) to grasp an important mechanism in the production of art that is well known from the twentieth century, and that appears in a number of guises, including negation, in the course of this exhibition.


Dämmplatten, 2023
100 pink insulation panels, PS Austrotherm
each 120 × 65 cm, tongue and groove joints
1440 × 500 cm
Courtesy Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna