Interested in the image of the individual and in the idea of community
for many years Beate Rathmayr has been creating a photographic
inventory of unknown people in the street.Two elderly women in
flowery dresses and both swinging their bags, children playing on
the pavement; several women in pink - they walk, they stand, they
smoke; people waiting at the bus stop. Not one of them has ever
encountered the other.
Digitalised and made available on the computer the people are
taken out of any particular place and form groups and pair off
in relationships on the timeless and placeless white surface of the
photographic paper. With a creative eye, countless patterns can be
found in the complete confusion of everyday life and variations of
the same world brought produced. No one seems immune from being
influenced and nothing can be thought of as inimitable, whether it be
language, posture, clothing and gestures. Everywhere irrerelevancies become symbols by which communities can be defined.
The artist’s interest in all this lies in the act of productive
intervention, of taking the rules into her own hands to build fantasies
about harmony between people, to invent sympathies and create
unreal relationships. In the montages and sketches people who have
probably never met talk to one another or are confronted with fictional
relationships. Beate Rathmayr wants to be surprised by her work, to
ask questions, tell stories and produce momentary scenes, to create free
spaces whilst representing the everyday world.
Beate Rathmayr, born 1969, lives and works in Linz in Austria. She
is an artist who works with an emphasis on conceptual photography,
video and installation. She initiates travel projects and is curator and
author of artistic and communication projects.
www.maerz.at
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