Statement

by Ingried Brugger (Director, BA Art Forum, Vienna, Austria)

“It is stages that Zenita Komad creates at Galerie Krinzinger, set up for the purpose of self-presentation, which inevitably brings me to the question: Do I like this? For Zenita’s claim is a seemingly casual, but in fact quite usurpatory appropriation of all those parts of the world that seem important to her. In ‘Zenita Universe’, the artist is the strategist who makes use of given artist attitudes as naturally as she runs the gamut of networking in the scene. And finally art history itself turns into a self-service store from which things are unabashedly taken out, altered, and remixed: props in a pictorial representation of Zenita’s universe! And all this is done with a self-confidence which fascinates as much as it irritates, which attracts and repels. That is one thing. But there is more, much more. Lurking behind ostensible shallowness of such a concept and the déjà-vu experience (which is inevitable) is a complicated artistic self-expression that is worth exploring. Secret messages, visual allusions, social and political gibes and taunts, and again and again the attempt to reorganize one’s own psyche and to make it communicable. These are just some of the things which travel hand in hand in Zenita Universe – provided with poignant intelligence – on a path which indeed makes the world appear new. This is something that does not happen every day, and it brings me to the decision: yes, I like the Zenita Universe.”