Photography by Wolfgang Thaler and Wolfgang Obermair

Moscow, you are not our Capital, 2010

“Where do we go from here?”
July 02 – August 29, 2010
Secession, Vienna

Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair and Belinda Kazeem
September 23‒27, 2015
Friedl Kubelka Fotoschule at the Parallel Vienna, Alte Post, Vienna

Installation consisting of four objects: wood, glass, metal, ink-jet print, gouache, cardboard, max. size 95 × 70 × 7,5 cm

Katalin Timár, Catalogue of the exhibition “Where do we go from here?”, Secession, Vienna (unpublished), Summer 2010
“Moscow, you are not our Capital” epitomizes Shapiro-Obermair's interests in working with various layers and aspects of cultural history. The work is underwritten with her private micro-history since it contains photographic representations of certain emblematic locations in her geographical trajectory. This endeavour is translated into an aesthetic experience by Shapiro-Obermair's juxtaposition and variation of recurring elements, such as snapshots of seemingly ordinary urban locations (from Nuremberg and Berlin) with photographs of modernist-minimalistic objects, and hand-made drawings of repetitive, geometrical forms, looking like computer-generated prints. All these elements are carefully arranged and staged for the spectators who are invited by Shapiro-Obermair to establish their own relationship to her objects and to the ideas they are meant to evoke; some of which – as the title suggests – refer to the personal consequences of geographical dislocation that is, in the case of the artist, is devoid of any sentimental nostalgia. 
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