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It's important to note Zobernig's background coming from theater design. Objects which in their replicant mis-rememberance of archetypal painting instead limn its vague caricature, a consensual version, short-circuited to be art that already looks like art. Becoming stand-ins (theater sets) for the contemporary, or its "zombie" version.
In other words their extreme banality incites questioning, and exposes its stage to the skepticism wrought.
The inanity of such an operation might seem at the limits of humane interest, but Zobernig's magisterial ability to continually wrest insipid rabbits from contemporary hat irrupts a manic laughability at the depths of that hat.
The jewels in the rough here work because their showcasing of the exhibition around it proved that they were never needed to begin with.
Paul Cowan at Clifton Benevento , Margaret Lee at Team , Kaspar Müller at Federico Vavassori , Heimo Zobernig at Petzel, Krupp, MUDAM , Seven Reeds at Overduin and co.
