2019
Belvedere 21
Museum of Contemporary Art, Vienna
The show was part of a group exhibition highlighting emerging young artists from Vienna.
Nana Mandl operates along the fault lines of contemporary visuality, between analog and digital, material and virtual. Her wall-spanning material collages and assemblages mix found objects with elements of painting and craft, creating complex compositions. Drawing from visual resources in everyday culture, social media, and advertising, Mandl manipulates these by moving between digital and analog media. Her works include Google Earth photos, animations, QR codes, cutouts, and embroidery, reflecting on the economies of image use in commodified virtual spaces. Her installation „things i couldn’t wish for (subtle coherences within nostalgic pleasures)“ playfully touches on themes of youthful desire, collecting, and navigating political and social power structures as an artist.
Mandl sees herself as part of the „Remix Generation,“ shaped by the rapid acceleration of image production through digital technologies. Despite the vast online image stream, she insists on connecting this to real space, using painting as a medium to reflect on images, the world, and collective gestures of display.
Text: Luisa Ziaja
Photos:
© Belvedere, Wien, Johannes Stoll
© kunst-dokumentation.com, Manuel Carreon Lopez
and Nana Mandl