Antoine Donzeaud's exhibition curated by Alexandra-Maria Toth at Gallery Georg Kargl In Vienna.

Antoine Donzeaud: 
À l’endroit et à l’envers du temps
we’ve got time

Curated by Alexandra-Maria Toth
March 6, 2020 – April 16, 2020 (Note: Due to COVID-19, this exhibition had to close a week after the official inauguration. The official closing of this exhibition has been postponed for an indefinite period.)
Gallery Georg Kargl Permanent, Vienna


All works of art are like a window open to creation; a kind of transparent screen is mounted in the window frame; through this screen, objects appear more or less distorted, as they undergo greater or smaller changes in their lines and colors. These changes depend on the nature of the screen; thus, creation is no longer credible or realistic, as creation is transformed by the medium through which the image passes1. In Salinger’s Teen Novel, Zooey2 looks out the window and watches a little girl playing with her dog. He says: „There are nice things in this world, we are all such morons to get so sidetracked”. The window appears as a vantage point to gaze into other people’s (beautiful) lives. In Emma’s3 house, the window is tantamount to a screen, where she can project her fantasies (which shall never turn into reality); a dissociation; a tie between the external space and the interior space; two sides; two perspectives; a facial expression reflects in the window glass, while a view outside turns into an expectation; „There it was before her – life”. To the Lighthouse4; a family observes as the days pass and their lives develop through a window; outside the window; a distant object – apparently unobtainable, reveals yearnings, frustrations and desires; the sun sets; days go by; images, impressions and sentiments remain as fragments of the past and sometimes the present. There is no window without a story; for the window is an architectural work of art, that stores memories and tells different sides of one particular story. There is no window without a screen; a certain gaze or a plain glass is always in between; a created separation; as time passes, the window becomes a symbol for contemporary longings and memories of past days; a cracked screen; a broken window; capable to reveal one’s inner feelings; sometimes hidden behind a bunch of curtains, that once belonged to a (familiar) home.
Text by Alexandra-Maria Toth

Antoine Donzeaud (FR), born 1985, lives and works in Paris, France. His practice explores both social and physical structures in contemporary society with regards to architecture and space, identity and community. Recent works have been investigating ideas of contemporary longing and contemporary sadness in relation to architectural derivates, spatial cut-ups, domestic objects and fabrics.

Photo: Flavio Palasciano. Courtesy Gallery Georg Kargl and the Artist.