Dorit Margreiter

Dorit Margreiter is interested in the connections between visual systems and spatial structures and the relationship between present and past, and also between reality, representation, and fiction. The medium of film has a special significance here. This publication, which includes ten volumes in a slipcase, accompanies Margreiter’s personal show at mumok. There, the artist transforms the entire exhibition gallery into an artistic installation. The starting idea for this installation comes from Margreiter’s present interest in halls of mirrors and the book of essays Labyrinths, by the Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges. A key element of the installation is a new film by Margreiter, made in a hall of mirrors in Vienna. In this labyrinthine structure of glass and reflecting surfaces, our gaze is deliberately broken, fragmented, multiplied, and distorted. The differences between the physical and visual basics of orientation are thus a key theme in Margreiter’s film, as are also the material, technical, and mental determinants of filmic representation, projection, and illusion.