go to work on an egg

We all know eggs and many of us deal with them several times a week. Eggs are boiled, baked, eaten, painted, thrown against house walls, blown out, separated, dropped, whisked, replaced and gratefully taken away from chickens. We have all known eggs since our childhoods. But that is not the reason why the exhibition ‘go to work on an egg’ focuses on this fragile object. We are primarily interested in the products that have been created around the capitalistic turn of the century around the commodity "egg".

If you want to cook eggs, there are all kinds of aids and if you don't want to boil them in water, you can prepare them in the microwave. The "microwave egg cooker" is available for this purpose: A thin wall of plastic encases the egg so that it does not explode under the heat.

Go to work on an egg was created as an analogy to this small plastic object which keeps the egg firmly encased. Along the walls of the entire exhibition space paper strips, coated with glue and wax, hang from the ceiling. A connection that looks fragile like a thin, leathery skin, but is extremely robust thanks to its synthetic nature. Similar to the egg and the "microwave egg cooker", go to work on an egg brings together natural, fragile and synthetic, robust materials stimulating an examination of plastic.

The immersive spatial installation is a collaboration between Julia Haugeneder and Magdalena Kreinecker. The combination of their two artistic practices, working days and discussions have led to this result: an installation that lies like a protective membrane between the wall and the volume of the room.

Consisting of tissue paper, linen, glue, pigment, wax and epoxy resin, the installation made up of many individual parts, is a combination of naturally obtained and artificially produced, reused and recycled, but also aggressive and environmentally harmful materials.

A similar combination of materials forms the seating furniture, which was created in a collaboration by Werkbüro (Lucas Schmid), Julia Haugeneder and Magdalena Kreinecker for go to work on an egg.

The film trilogy by Matteo Sanders and Julia Haugeneder continues the question of the connection between the production of value and the materials with which a society surrounds itself on a cinematic level. The focus of the exploratory film series is on contained potentials for liberation, which can be unearthed and questioned not only in the history of plastic, but also in dealing with crops (Part II) and care work (Part III). What becomes visible is a form of organization of coexistence inherent to capitalism that is based on exploitation and can only shift it, not end it. It is precisely this displacement of labor into an unpaid and less visible part of society that tells the story of the corefamily in connection with the architecture created for them: the architecture of terraced houses.   

PART I: Farewell. Or a person and a donkey know more than a person alone, AT 2024, 23min, PART II: And they are not faced with a blind mute world either, AT 2024, 10min, PART III: And they live in serial houses, AT 2024, 15min

Contributors: Manuel Bachinger, Elias Freiberger, Theresa Hattinger, Michaela Herites, Lisa-Maria Hollaus, Sebastian Kubelka, David Lagler, Konrad Milan, Object fabrication, Asher O'Gorman, Michael Pöschl, Benjamin Posselt, Matteo Sanders, Helene Schreilechner, Miriam Stoney, Vanessa Swoboda, Jonas Wiesinger, Rudolf Pototschnig, Benno Schlick

Performers: Diana Andrei, Christine Baumann, Lukas Güttl, Julia Haugeneder, Gabi Hödelmoser, Almud Krejza, Simon Nagy, Eva Oberhofer, Georg Oberhumer, Sabine Priglinger, Beate Schachinger, Lucas Schmid, Andrea Stockinger, Simon Stockinger, Lia Sudermann, Nino Svireli, James Woodgate and Fridolin the Donkey.

Text basis PART III: Simon Nagy

From the 1990s until 2010, the studio of the Neue Galerie served as a platform for young Austrian artists who were not yet fully established in the art world after completing their training or were at the beginning of their careers. In 2017, this essential instrument for promoting and documenting young art was reintroduced in the Joanneumviertel.