Laura Schawelka

In her often space-consuming installations, Laura Schawelka makes use of photography, video, and sculpture in a multilayered dialog in which traditional definitions such as subject, image content, or image carrier are called into question. Images are shown as larger than life or miniaturized; they become backgrounds or are equipped with props. In her latest work, the artist focuses on the role of photography in the development of modern consumer society--from the first department stores in Paris to the present day. In doing so, she shines a light on online trade, among other things: What does it mean if goods are only communicated through other goods, computers, cell phones, tablets--in short, screens? If feeling something in a store is replaced by swiping on a touchscreen? If this distance, this withholding of the genuine object, is precisely what prompts the desire for it in the first place?