Krobath Wien

Data frenzy and global communication in real-time have given rise to a new form of media-related one’s own time. The possibility to be connected to everybody nonstop via digital networks has destroyed all hope that we could be the masters of time. The past dwindles and the future eludes any kind of control. The feeling of timelessness coupled with the feeling of our own vulnerability in a world that has come out of joint, is not only a phenomenon of today’s life that is dominated by the pandemic, social dislocations and climate change. The Viennese sociologist Helga Nowotny scrutinised the question of how changes in society affect the sense of time as early as 1989 in her book Eigenzeit (1) The feeling of losing time also highlights the question of one’s own existence and the fear of vanishing without a trace. In short, the question of what remains of us and why. The Danish artist Sofie Thorsen, who has been living in Vienna since the late 1990ies, has for many years addressed the role of archives, depots, historical images and archaeological collections as storages for our cultural and socio-political memory in her stripped-down drawings, collages and sculptures. And here, the artist is mainly intrigued by the gaps, the missing parts or things that have disappeared from contemporary collective memory or the visible sphere. Because the question of what and how it is collected, archived, studied or destroyed is always a mirror of a certain economic, political and social situation. From: Fiona Liewehr, Sofie Thorsen „Shards“, 2022

Born in 1971 in Denmark, Sofie Thorsen lives and works in Vienna. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, she has shown her work internationally in numerous group and solo exhibitions. She is currently an associate professor at Funen Art Academy in Odense, Denmark, and held a teaching position at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 2005 to 2009. Her mostly installation-based work is dedicated to questions of perception, space, cultural objects and their documentation. Currently her exhibition “Shards“ is on view at Krobath Wien until April 2nd, 2022.

Founded 1996 in Lichtensteinstraße KROBATH (former Galerie Krobath Wimmer) has been located in Palais Eschenbach since 1999, where it functions as a vital part of the noted Viennese Gallery-Quarter Eschenbachgasse. KROBATH is known as a venue for presenting, discussing and exploring contemporary art movements. The gallery’s exhibitions and contributions to international art fairs focus on promoting Austrian artists as well as international positions. The gallery concentrates on painting, photography, sculpture and video, dealing with the various concepts of space, architecture, urban living and modern society. 2008 the gallery expanded to additional rooms at Nibelungengasse. 2009 the Gallery opened a second space with KROBATH Berlin.