Receiving the World
Video installation
2008
Artist Statement
Wolfgang Lehrner is a traveller. Portugal, the UK, Bulgaria, Albania, Turkey, Georgia, USA, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, Mexico, Jamaica … He calls Vienna his “homebase,” from where he likes to set forth (as often as possible). But it need not necessarily involve great distances; 15 minutes on his bicycle through the 3rd district of Vienna – as a “Wettlauf mit/ gegen Zeitzonen” (Race through/against time zones) – are enough to capture views of the city with his still camera that might just as well be found in places such as Berlin, Havana, Moscow, San José or Bucharest.
When he actually arrives somewhere else, the artist may set up his video camera in a snow flurry, the lens pointing at the edge of a forest. The caption that is inserted briefly, “Kungsö, Åland Islands, Fin- land, March 24, 2008, 5:00 pm”, raises certain associations with the viewers that are immediately carried to other places by voices and music coming from a world receiver radio (which Wolfgang Lehrner simply placed next to the camera). News from the UK, music with an oriental sound, a radio feature in German … in between the white noise of channel scanning. The artist gave to this piece that he presented as a video installation the title “Receiving the World. Watching local nature while listening to global culture. Local-Global-Nature-Culture-Time-Place-Radio-Video-Documents All Around the World. (Claudia Ehgartner, 2008)
Biography
Wolfgang Lehrner (born November 14, 1980) is an artist based in Vienna, Europe. Educated at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Lehrner has exhibited widely since 2008. On his countless voyages he captured over 50 moving images: 1-minute videos which are dedicated to the poetic of the everyday. Lehrner’ recent work, World City, investigates the cosmopolitan image of the 21st century. Searching for the local in the global, the same in the other. As a visionary he is working constantly on a aerial tramway from Vienna to Tokyo: Eurasian Gondolas.
Websites
www.wolfganglehrner.com
www.wolfganglehrner.com/ReceivingtheWorld.html
