Mumok Gallery - Josef Dabernig

Mumok Gallery
Josef Dabernig - Rock the void

We walked in from a busy hot outside space in Vienna into Josef Dabernig exhibition in the MUMOK which was white, minimalist, and being quite honest looked practically empty. Unlike most galleries there was no pictures, paintings or photographs on the walls, just white walls and giant white cubes. It didn't look particularly thrilling.

Josef Dabernig exhibition was made up of 24 short films, sculptures, displays of the processes he went through and workings outs, though mostly it was short films. It was described as a mix of museum and cinema. It was all presented through grids each cinema room was even to the one opposite and each display case was evenly spaced to the next and inside the display cases the work was laid out parallel to the next piece. Daberig processes seemed regimented and consistent, this helped with the minimalist feel of the exhibition.

I viewed at least parts of every one of his film, as expected some interested me more than others. The films were in black and white, there was no colour in his films just like the gallery space. I found his films to be set in empty places and by that I mean everyday, uninteresting places that you wouldn't look twice at, let alone decide to film in. But I guess that is part of the magic of his film making it was everyday life, over heard conversations, football, car journeys, river bathing etc. The way he filmed and his perspective is what made them interesting, focusing in on body parts and movements in the river bathing scene rather that the swimming and sun bathing itself. Changing the noises around in the football stadium scene, the way he thought and represented those thoughts is what made the films different and interesting.

I can't pretend that I found them all interesting. At the start it took me a while to get into the films I didn't really understand them, when I read into what they were about that really helped. Some of them just couldn't grab me at all, there was one about a racing car with two men that I just didn't like, it was strange and it had no appeal to me.