Julia Znoj

In your artistic work, the material is immediately noticeable: you use recycled materials alongside construction materials and assemble them into fragile objects. What importance does the material hold for you?

The material often serves as a starting point for my artistic as well as my studio practice. For collecting, walking around the streets, looking at things, and for understanding that material might be something like a (subconscious) language of society, something that tells stories about the architecture of the spaces we enter, their relationships, and their economy. Working with materials has a playful aspect while also possessing an inherent givenness. Forcing the material into a specific form is something I find debatable in terms of content. I try to let it resonate with its history, so that it doesn’t become something completely foreign.

Where do you find these materials?

I don’t steal materials from construction sites; I take them when it’s obvious that they are no longer needed. But I also buy materials. There is no rigid system behind it. It’s important to me not to create a hierarchy in the valuation of materials.

Because you mentioned earlier that the material tells its own story, would you say you play with references?

Yes. Such a reference can be a conventional interpretation of a type of material; a simple example would be breaking down the hardness of metal. These are simple moments of transfer. Formally, I refer to various movements within art history such as minimalism or biomorphic sculptures and architecture. I try to make conscious decisions about the aesthetics and patterns I engage with, the patterns, materials, and attitudes I juxtapose.

Almost all of your works have titles. How important is it for you to establish references or a narrative?

In my last major exhibition, which took place from the end of 2022 to the beginning of 2023 at Kunstraum Schwaz, I worked with Elisabeth Bronfen’s doctoral thesis Over Her Dead Body, a book I have been carrying around with me for a long time. In it, Bronfen examines art historical, Western representations of mortality and death through the lens of the female body from a feminist perspective. Death is situated in the Other, in the “non-self.” In this exhibition, I juxtaposed various stories and historical figures with the sculptures. It helped me think about the abstraction of such stories and give them a counterpart.

What was the exhibition about exactly?

In her doctoral thesis, Elisabeth Bronfen wrote about the unknown woman from the Seine, L’Inconnue de la Seine. I wanted to play with the question of how much history or text art or discourse can attribute to objects. How does narration relate to radically abstract form? How do things remain undescribed? This is also the position I currently take, even when I write an artist statement: questioning the role of the text. With the current A.I. text generators, we are currently in an ontological unrest that affects everything in “our” environment. Nothing is unknown; the unease is growing. The questions that arise are countless.

In the studio, you have a variety of objects arranged on the floor and walls, and there is a model of a room on the table with drafts of exhibits placed in it. What are you currently working on?

Right now, I’m trying to assemble the booth for ZONE 1 of the viennacontemporary art fair, where I’ll be collaborating with the Windhager von Kaenel gallery in September 2023. While I don’t necessarily use a site-specific approach for the booth, I still take the conditions of the space into account. The model of the booth shows the designs of new works. I’ve recently been working with glass and want to produce a large glass surface that looks like a roughly shattered iPhone screen. I’m currently in touch with an art caster to discuss how I could implement it. I wonder what emerges from this transfer when content is translated into a different scale. I don’t want to reproduce the object itself, but rather the affects evoked when touching and looking at the shattered screen. There’s still a lot that can change in the process.

I find it interesting that you conceive your works through a model. Is that always your approach?

Yes, I’ve always created models for various things. Others may not always understand them, but it helps me to think about the respective ideas and spaces.

Until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, you were part of the Kunstverein Gärtnergasse. Were you focused on anything specific with your program?

Julija Zaharijević and I initially founded the art association under the name Handbag before starting a program conducted in rotation with others at Gärtnergasse. At the beginning, Julija and I wanted to present young female artists who have a feminist claim and language in their art. That’s how we imagined it, but we quickly realized that a space has its own dynamics, especially when the structures are kept very open. Julija and I are still very good friends and see potential in reviving Handbag in the future. Organizing exhibitions was part of our artistic education. The exchange with other artists has brought me closer to many things.

Here in the studio, you share the workspace with your colleague Valentina Triet, and you had a collaborative project planned at the beginning of the program year. Have you continued working on this project?

The current state of affairs is that we’ve started a “collaboration in life.” Coming here together, having lunch together, and exchanging ideas has become a form of collaboration that we’ll continue. For after the program ends, we’re looking for a studio to share. We haven’t created any specific output yet, but we laid the foundation for it during the program year.

What else is planned beyond the Studio program?

As I mentioned, I’ll be participating in ZONE 1 of viennacontemporary in the fall, and then I’ll have an exhibition curated by Lisa Jäger at WAF Galerie at the end of the year, which I’m very excited about.