discrepancies with W.W. (in company)

In her exhibition “discrepancies with W.W. (in company)” at the University Gallery of the University of Applied Arts in the Heiligenkreuzerhof in Vienna, Leonor Antunes combines her own artistic works with objects and textiles by female designers from the Wiener Werkstätte and the former k. k. Kunstgewerbeschule (Imperial and Royal School of Arts and Crafts), drawn from the Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Leonor Antunes’ interest in the historical developments and key figures of 20th-century art, craftsmanship, design, and architecture forms the conceptual framework for her artistic practice. At the same time, she sees her work as a tribute to designers who have often been overlooked or marginalised. This forms the backdrop to her in-depth research, which, however, does not remain confined to a historical and theoretical level but involves close collaboration with craft professionals to develop new approaches and methods for working with specific materials in her artworks. Antunes’ extensive knowledge and her archive of materials flow into her own sculptures and installations, which incorporate materials such as rope, wood, leather and brass. The nature of an exhibition space is thereby of the utmost importance to the artist. The floor and ceiling, as well as the light source—be it natural or artificial—play just as significant a role as the exhibited objects. Antunes: “I really believe that art exists in a context, so I don’t see [my sculptures] outside the spaces where they exist.” With regard to Vienna, Antunes has previously engaged with the Wiener Werkstätte and the Austrian painter, graphic artist and textile designer Felice Rix-Ueno (1893–1967). During her research in the Collection of the Angewandte, Antunes focused on female artists and designers such as Gudrun Baudisch, Rosa Bonom, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, Mathilde Flögl, Lilly Jacobsen, Erika Giovanna Klien, Valentine Kovacic, Felice Rix-Ueno, Hilda Schmid-Jesser, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Maria Strauss-Likarz and Vally Wieselthier. Having carefully selected various objects, including ceramic vases and other vessels, linocuts, drawings, fabric pieces in various patterns and colours as well as photographs, Antunes specially devised a visually multi-layered exhibition system to exhibit these. The basis for this system is a chair designed by the French architect and designer Charlotte Perriand (1903–1999) following a working stay in Japan in the early 1940s. For Antunes this also symbolizes the connection between Japanese craftsmanship and the Wiener Werkstätte, of which Felice Rix-Ueno, among others, was a member until 1930. Rix-Ueno worked in both Kyoto and Vienna. Constructed from wooden elements, Antunes’ exhibition system is potentially adaptable and expandable. The chair’s everyday function as a seat is transformed into a plinth and a support for hanging works. Further exhibition elements include tatami mats, which the artist integrates or arranges into a geometric platform. The lamps designed by the artist complete the spatial arrangements. Also on display here are Antunes’ sculptures from the series “Sophie” (2023–24), which draw their inspiration from drawings, beaded bags and necklaces by the Swiss artist and designer Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889–1943), as well as “Felice and Charlotte” (2025), which reference Rix-Ueno and Perriand. Intertwined strands of glass beads in geometric patterns, varying in colour, thickness and length, are interwoven with vertical white steel rods or narrow, elongated pieces of wood. The latter refer respectively to a white steel handrail Taeuber-Arp had designed for her and her husband Hans Arp’s studio-house in Meudon in France, while the wooden supports refer to a further chair design by Perriand. Shown in all spaces is the series “Olga”, which Antunes started in 2005 and named after her daughter. Two tubes are placed inside each other: the outer sleeve, made of Plexiglas, relates to Olga’s growth, while the inner, coloured tube represents Antunes’ height. Every year, the artist creates a new version corresponding to Olga’s choice of colour. Antunes’ overarching aim for her exhibition “discrepancies with W.W. (in company)” is to create a dialogue between her own artistic works and specific objects from the Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, whilst taking into account the overall idiosyncratic interior of the former prelature at Heiligenkreuzerhof. Here, several specific levels of temporality, form and materiality converge, prompting reflection on the codes of representation and the domestic, on modernism and abstraction, contemporaneity and synchronicity. Leonor Antunes thus claims for herself an interdisciplinary freedom that she finds in the pioneering artistic practices of the early 20th century. Our thanks for the loans and generous support go to Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, as well as to the galleries Kurimanzutto, Mexico City and New York; Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris and New York; and Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo and Kyoto.