Federico Luger (FL GALLERY) is delighted to present the first exhibition of Andreas Fogarasi in Italy after the solo exhibition at the Hungary Pavillion at the Venice Biennale in 2007 in which he won the Golden Lion Prize for the best national participation.

In his sculptural and photographic work, Andreas Fogarasi investigates how things are presented to us. He analyses how places, cities, political ideas, or historic events become images, and how art, architecture and design form those images into spectacle. His exhibition evokes and reinterprets some of these gestures of presentation. On entering the room, a video screen is suspended in the middle of the space, stretched tightly between floor and ceiling.

The video Europa (2016) shows the collected tourism-logos of the European countries, in a steady succession, arranged alphabetically and reduced to stark black and white. One logo after the other fades in slowly in front of a white background, reaching full hue at the end of its 10 second-interval, then disappearing, before the next one fades in. The logos, designed to attract tourists and investors, are abstracted representations of landscape, atmosphere and national identity, while also visualising the current corporate logic of public administrations. In a time, when “European identity” seems in crisis and in which global migration challenges and changes the notion of the nation state, Fogarasi’s documentary practice avoids judgement (or rather: leaves it to the viewer) and combines a Becher-esque typological study with dry humor.

North American International Auto Show (2012) features an array of mirrored, V-shaped plywood structures. Between architectonic elements, exhibition walls and autonomous sculptures, they face the visitor and reflect the surrounding space. They display a series of colour photographs showing the dismantling of the massive trade fair held annually in Detroit, the center of American auto industry. The photographs capture instants of this laborious process, the cars already gone. Focusing on the massive temporary constructions, on crates, signs and architectural surfaces, they act as a metaphor for the collapse and renewal of post- industrial city spaces.

The Roof Studies (2014 - ongoing), made from folded copper or aluminum and covered with bookbinding cloth or marbled paper are hybrids of architectural models, material samples and information surfaces. They are echoing the folded pages of a book as well as the geometric structures of modern architecture. The roof as shelter and most basic form of architecture is a recurring motif in Fogarasi’s work, the flaglike appearance of the objects is counterbalanced by their reflective metallic surface and their sharp folds. While they are mostly based on generic folded patterns, the leather-covered “Roof Study (Unesco)” (2018) is modeled after Marcel Breuer’s and Pier Luigi Nervi’s conference hall for the Unesco building in Paris, a place where decisions are formed about which buildings, urban structures or landscapes are granted the status of “World Heritage Sites”.

Andreas Fogarasi was born in 1977 in Vienna, lives in Vienna. His work was shown in numerous internation institutions, among others at Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Museum Leopold, Vienna; New Museum, New York; Kunstverein Düsseldorf; Museum Ludwig, Budapest; Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb; Frankfurter Kunstverein; Palais de Toyko, Paris. Solo exhibitions include: Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2019); Galerie Thomas Bernard, Paris (2018); Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna (2017); Proyectos Monclova, Mexico City (2016); MAK Center, Los Angeles (with Oscar Tuazon); Galeria Vermelho, Sao Paulo; GfZK – Museum of Contemporary Art, Leipzig; Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich (2014); Trafó Gallery, Budapest; Prefix, Toronto (2012); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; CAAC – Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo, Sevilla (2011); Ludwig Forum, Aachen (2010); MAK, Vienna; Grazer Kunstverein, Graz (2008) and at the Hungarian Pavilion at the 52. Biennale di Venezia (2007), where he was awarded the Golden Lion Prize for best national participation.