SHED

With the special participation of Alabrea Choir

Liesl Raff is an artist living and working in Vienna. At the invitation of Topocentrala and curator Vladiya Mihaylova, she will present her works at the Cube Gallery of the Centre for Contemporary Arts.

The exhibition Shed includes sculptural objects and installations, some of them site-specific to the architecture of the space. The works by Liesl Raff address processes and themes in art that develop further the language of materials, the interaction between them, the process of creating objects and the relationship between sculpture and architecture.

The artist works primarily with latex, which is a natural material extracted from rubber trees; it is plastic, authentic, raw, and bodily soft. She approaches it as an expressive medium that can convey a great wealth of meanings in different forms and in interaction with various other materials. The language of Liesl Raff’s work is direct and honest with the viewers. It is based on both a particular materiality and an “ethical” system of the artistic process itself and its cultural meanings.

There are no hierarchies in the artist's works, the horizontals and verticals are included in an expressive visual language that reconciles binary oppositions such as: soft and hard, ascending and descending, up and down, transparent and solid, etc. The exhibition involves the viewers in a world of mixed sensations and overflowing boundaries, creating an atmosphere of closeness and acceptance.

Central to the exhibition is the sculptural installation Shed, which Toplocentrala co-produced with the Franz Josef Kai 3 Contemporary Art Space in Vienna. Between a sculptural object and an architectural building, the work is associated with the places of passage offering a short rest and comfort. In the system of meanings constructed by the artist using the language of the materials, these fragile zones of repose are places of care and attention, of the quietness of the bodies.

Shed is an exhibition of the multitude rather than the single. It creates enough space and volume to "accommodate" communities, bodies alongside other bodies that are together and equally standing in the space.

At the invitation of the artist and curator Vladiya Mihaylova the Alabrea choir directed by Atanaska Popova is having a special appearance during the exhibition. United by the desire to sing together, people from across a wide range of occupations have been meeting for years to perform a rich repertoire of classical and contemporary works. Every second Thursday of the exhibition period, the Alabrea choir will hold open rehearsals and choral games with the participation of the audience, and on the last weekend of the exhibition, November 25, will present a short concert to wind down that process.

Liesl Raff's exhibition at Toplocentrala Gallery - Cube is realized in partnership with the Austrian Embassy in Bulgaria.

More information about Liesl Raff:

Liesl Raff born 1979 in Stuttgart, Germany, lives and works in Vienna. She presented her works in solo exhibitions at FJK3 Space for Contemporary Art, Vienna, AT; Sophie Tappeiner, Vienna, AT; Nicolas Krupp, Basel, CH; NEVVEN, Gothenburg, SE; Biennale Freiburg, Freiburg, DE; and Sharp Projects, Copenhagen, DK among others. She participated in group shows including Avant-Garde and the Contemporary, Belvedere 21, Vienna, AT; Enjoy – the mumok Collection in Change, mumok, Vienna, AT; Resentment, Kunst Meran, Meran, IT; and Ebbing Touch, Madragoa Hotel, Lisbon, PT.