Vera Lutter

Vera Lutter: Inside In is the first museum exhibition of the artist’s photographic work to take place on such a large scale in Europe. It presents a vast overview: from the very early 1994 work depicting New York urban environments, to the unique explorations of industrial areas in the “Friedrichshafen” and “Frankfurt Airport” series of 1999 and 2001, through to the photographic studies of interior architecture in “Studios” and “Pepsi Cola” of 2000-2003.

Using the pioneeric technique of the pinhole camera to construct captivating and intriguing representations of space and architecture, Vera Lutter reinvents the medium of photography and enters into a discourse on the condition of an image by generating a new approach towards both time and space. As such, Lutter’s photography reveals hidden aspects of represented objects and environments, pushing them to the edge of the unfamiliar and new, the uncanny and tamed, suspended between mobility and stillness, closeness and distance. 
Positioned in a darkened room fitted with a pinhole, the artist exposes the outside scene directly onto the photographic paper. Because the resulting images are not made with a negative, they are unique and cannot be reproduced.

The photographic process reverses the tones on the paper – the sky is black, buildings are white – and it also renders the image itself inverted and upside down. As such, the unusual elaboration of the large-scale photograph activates the viewer’s perceptual qualities; it is as if its immensity invites one to inhabit seemingly ghostly environments. Physical and subjective spaces are blurred and the spectator becomes an integral part of the inside in performance. The enigma of the unusually long exposures - which due to their unexpectedness resemble the strategy of a happening - combines with questioned spontaneity of the photographic process to strengthen the unique experience of viewing Lutter’s complex work.

The arrangement of the works in the exhibition creates a narrative that guides the viewer through the uncanny reality of Lutter’s photographic world. On the conceptual level, it reflects a process of internalization typical of the artist’s approach: from a spectacular series depicting means of transportation, where tension arises from the powerful illusion of movement and a sense of arrested motion (photographs taken in the area of Frankfurt airport and the shipyards of Rostock), to troubled visions of the metropolitan spaces of New York, Chicago and Berlin, rendered in a dream-like state of suspense and broken urban narrative, through to the intriguing series of interiors - industrial, mostly run-down spaces, disturbing in their anxiety and stillness, true evidence of psychological drama. It is an image of a “collapsed space”, where estrangement and familiarity create a mental construction that goes beyond the physical experience of a space. This last series enters into conceptual discourse in an intertextual play with its own mirror reflections within the frame of the photograph, multiplying the images in an almost endless sequence of insides and returns and thus, through the aspects of structural repetitiveness and self-reflection upon the medium, referring to such minimalist and conceptual artists as Sol LeWitt and Dan Graham. 
The Inside In exhibition also includes a photograph taken by Vera Lutter during her stay in Graz (using the Kunsthaus location as a pinhole camera).

Catalogue 
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue containing reproductions of all the works and with texts by Lynne Cooke, Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen and Peter Pakesch, as well as a conversation with the artist by Adam Budak. 
ISBN 3-88375-811-6, Price: € 29.90

Programme:

Tue, 16.03.2004, 7p.m., Space04
Time and Time Again
Lecture by Lynne Cook
Lecture by Lynn Cooke
Framework of the exhibition Vera Lutter: Inside In
Lynne Cooke has been Curator at the Dia Art Foundation since 1991. In addition she teaches at Bard College and Columbia University, New York, and writes on contemporary art. In 1991 she co-curated the Carnegie International, and in 1996 was Director of the Sydney Biennale.

27.04.2004 
Sculptors as photographers - Vera Lutter and Thomas Demand
Lecture by Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen 
Supporting programme to the exhibition Vera Lutter: Inside In
Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen 
Studies of philosophy, theoretical linguistics andcommunication aesthetics, graduated in 1987; 1982-1987 free lance journalist, 1987-2002 part-time professorship for art theory at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg, 1992-2001 Director of the Kunstverein in Hamburg; since 2002 Director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Visiting scholar at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, New York.
Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee at the Ifa-Institute, Scientific Advisor of the Committee at the Musée France d' Art Moderne Grand Duc Jean, Luxemburg. Numerous guest lectures at universities and museums at home and abroad. Among his publications there are 'Spielregeln' (Cologne 1987), 'Kunst-Arbeit' (Stuttgart 1999), 'perfektimperfekt' (Freiburg 2001).
Beside questions concerning the development of art universitieshis current research focus is lying within the fields of museology and reception theory.

Wed. March 24 and Apr. 21, 3-5 p.m.
Made out of Light and Room in the series of Adventure:Museum for young guests
Supporting programme to the exhibition Vera Lutter: Inside In 
for young guests ages 9-12 in the series Adventures:Museum
On the basis of the works of the German artist Vera Lutter, which come into being in the'camera obscura' - something similar to a photographic instrument as large as a room the secrets of photography will be explored, and our young guests can step into the wonderful world of mirrored pictures.
Adventure:Museum is a series of the most varied and exciting communication activities the Landesmuseum Joanneum offers in its different locations in order to present its works of art to young guests.
We kindly request advance notice kunstvermittlung@kunsthausgraz.at
T **43-316/8017 9200

Supported by A1 and
Zumtobel Staff