galerie michaela stock

THE FATTER THE BETTER A weight miracle pill, an action heroine, or a beauty queen in plus size format: Veronika Merklein’s performance art is surreal, socio-political and always full of wit. According to Michel Foucault, the human body is not ’naturally‘ given, but a historical, social and cultural construct into which power and knowledge is inscribed. And this is precisely where Veronika Merklein’s art comes in. At gallery michaela stock’s booth, Merklein contextualizes her body-emphasizing, often her „hard-to-digest“ art and points to social injustice. For the past 10 years, the fat German-Austrian performance artist has been working in the field of „body politics“ and repeatedly appears as a corporeal Me-form. At the fairbooth, she will be offering a glimpse into the daily stigmatization and discrimination of fat people through performance, installation, video, photography and texts. In works such as the female counterpart of Bruce Willis in „Die Hard“ and with her seduction with E. A. Sattler in Garden Eden, she challenges the devaluation of fat individuals on the basis of their appearance with a large portion of self-irony. The scale has been a motif in Merklein’s work historically. In the early days of its invention, weighing was carried out in public spaces and evoked curiosity without ulterior motive. However, with the invention of the personal scale, this act shifted to the private sphere in the 70s. As you will see, Merklein reclaims her steps on a scale, presents herself in caricature posing with green salad and suckling pig, and is on a tele-shopping channel trying to sell miracle „FATLife“ weight gain pills. True to the motto: „The fatter the better“.

German artist and political activist Veronika Merklein (b.1982) lives and works in Vienna (AT). With a focus on Performance Art, she also works with different media including food, text, photography, object, installation, and community work. Her art orbits around essential performance topics, pop-cultural phenomena and „the pure and brutal (inner)life of human beings“. In her main body of work, Merklein uses her own body as a starting point as she investigates body politics since 2012. Merklein enjoyed her artistic education at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (AT) and the School of Art and Design Kassel (D). She has presented work at Defibrillator Gallery, Chicago (US); at „Neuer Kunstverein Wien“, Vienna (AT); at Kaskadenkondensator, Basel (CH); Fridericianum, Kassel (D); Secession, Vienna (AT); Kiasma, Helsinki (FI), Wiener Festwochen upcoming (AT) and from time to time at home. Merklein received scholarships i.a. of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York City, Austrian Chancellary, Austrian Federal Ministry for Education (Arts and Culture), Austrian Federal Ministry for Science and Research, and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

The gallery has a strong focus on performance and CEE, especially contemporary Croatian artists. From 2015 to 19 the gallery organised a yearly performance event. During COVID-19 Michaela Stock launched SALON REAL / VIRTUAL, a new gallery concept: real vs virtual. The focus is on a new perception of the exhibition space and the artwork displayed. The goal is to dock the real world more strongly and actively at the interface to the virtual world. The gallery owner Michaela Stock juxtaposes the classic white cube with the concept of the gallery as a forum for discussions about a virtually staged exhibition and at the same time questions it. SALON VIRTUAL > https://www.kunstmatrix.com/en/galerie-michaela-stock