Overview
'I see art as something driven by scepticism and opposition. I want to develop work that addresses contemporary issues and at the same time looks at art history.'
Markus Schinwald's interdisciplinary body of work encompasses video, performance, dance, theatre, painting, photography, installation, and even puppetry. The artist creates mysterious and unsettling atmospheres that hint at their Viennese production context, through references to the austere Biedermeier style or to psychoanalysis. His work focuses on processes of manipulation and transformation of bodies and their environments. This emphasis is rooted in his early training in fashion and costume history, which not only awakened his general interest in clothing, but also drew his attention to the ways in which people are physically and emotionally limited by their cultural context.
Schinwald has declared himself a 'builder of prostheses for undefined cases', and alters 19th-century portraits by painting improbable apparatuses on the characters' faces and bodies, such as bandages, splints or wires that seem to fasten their limbs together. The artist has also developed a series of manipulated pieces of furniture, often using Biedermeier table or chair legs that are characteristic of the style valued by a growing middle-class in that period. He transforms these items by sawing off the legs and rearranging them in uncanny ways that often bring out their anthropomorphic qualities.
Markus Schinwald's interdisciplinary body of work encompasses video, performance, dance, theatre, painting, photography, installation, and even puppetry. The artist creates mysterious and unsettling atmospheres that hint at their Viennese production context, through references to the austere Biedermeier style or to psychoanalysis. His work focuses on processes of manipulation and transformation of bodies and their environments. This emphasis is rooted in his early training in fashion and costume history, which not only awakened his general interest in clothing, but also drew his attention to the ways in which people are physically and emotionally limited by their cultural context.
Schinwald has declared himself a 'builder of prostheses for undefined cases', and alters 19th-century portraits by painting improbable apparatuses on the characters' faces and bodies, such as bandages, splints or wires that seem to fasten their limbs together. The artist has also developed a series of manipulated pieces of furniture, often using Biedermeier table or chair legs that are characteristic of the style valued by a growing middle-class in that period. He transforms these items by sawing off the legs and rearranging them in uncanny ways that often bring out their anthropomorphic qualities.
Born in Salzburg in 1973, Schinwald studied at the Hochschule für Gestaltung, Linz and the Humboldt University, Berlin. He now lives and works between Vienna and New York. He represented Austria at the 54th Venice Bienniale in 2011 and his work has been shown in solo museum exhibitions including Fondazione Coppola, Vicenza (2021); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Malága (2017); Magasin III, Stockholm (2015); M Leuven (2014–15); SFMoMA and the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2014); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013); Kunstverein Hannover (2011); Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz (2011); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2009); Műcsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest (2009); Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich (2008); Augarten Contemporary, Vienna (2007); Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna (2006); Aspen Art Museum (2006); Frankfurter Kunstverein (2004); and Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2001).
The artist’s work is housed in prominent collections, including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; SFMoMA, San Francisco; Museum Belvedere, Vienna; Falckenberg Collection at Deichtorhallen Hamburg; Hamburger Kunsthalle; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Kunsthaus Zürich and Tate, London.
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