"Trailer"

July 10 - August 7, 2004

Reception: Saturday, July 10, 6 - 8 pm

In the project space, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects presents a group of new works by Isabell Heimerdinger. 

Isabell Heimerdinger's work entails an ongoing investigation of a wide set of parameters relating to film.  Having lived for several years in Hollywood, Heimerdinger has covered an extensive range of related subjects, from photographs of abandoned Hollywood movie theaters and explorations of movie set interiors to conceptual forays into the process of movie making and, more recently, of acting.  The 16 mm film entitled "Waiting, Acting Waiting" consists of two 7 minute parts, the first one showing a professional actor ( the Austrian actor Wolfram Berger) waiting for his performance - without knowing that the artist is filming him, and a second part in which the same actor plays himself waiting for his performance.  Once the viewer figures out the different contexts, the two performances are remarkably different - an actor being himself and playing himself, at once restricted and at the same time brought sharply into focus by the respective task and context of the film shoot.  By folding the act of acting back onto itself, Heimerdinger blurs the lines between behaving and performing - challenging both the act of immersing oneself into another person and the act of performing one's own personality.

Another work, entitled "Pose (from Dorothee to Dave)" consists of 24 Polaroid portraits.  Each guest at the artist's apartment is asked to perform a seemingly simple task in front of the camera, to copy the pose of the previous guest.  With every new interpretation the viewer is slowly taken away from the opening shot.  The work is complete when it is required for exhibition.

Isabell Heimerdinger received her MFA degree at the California Institute of the Arts and studied as a Master Student at the Academy Duesseldorf, Germany.  She has had solo exhibitions at Chouakri Brahms, Berlin, Meyer Riegger Galerie, Karlsruhe, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris, Galerie Krobath Wimmer, Vienna, and at the Swiss Institute, New York, NY.  Her work has been included in exhibitions, among others, at Lisson Gallery, London, at Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, at DaimlerChrysler Contemporary, Berlin, in the 5. Internationale Foto-Triennale Esslingen 2001, Villa Merkel, Esslingen, in "Hybrid", Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland, in "Video Cult/ures", Museum für Neue Kunst/ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany, in "1. Triennale der Photographie", Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany, and in "Ich und die Anderen", Ursula Blickle Stiftung, Kraichtal / Fotomuseum, München.