City Without Name

For more than ten years Wolfgang Lehrner's work has been the result of many marches in the world's metropolises. Since completing his studies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Wolfgang Lehrner has deepened his cosmopolitan research on the transformation of metropolises, their significance, differences and similarities in the globalized World-City system. In this respect, his boundless curiosity can be understood as a re-adjustment of the usual parameters of perception, as a tracing of the foreign in itself and vice versa, and also as a reversal of coincidence and destiny.

The lines between "sameness" and "similarity" become blurred when two images seem indistinguishable and yet convey something different: As a hop-on/hop-off tourist, the artist follows touristic routes regardless of their protagonists and observes the individuals of the global cities. The resulting cinematic and photographic portraits of urban everyday life are stunningly personal, yet distanced.

The 3-channel video installation "Bulevar Periférico" shows a city within a city through vanishing point perspective: a planned urban space that was once peripheral and is now located in the midst of the sprawling megacity. The venue is a covered pathway for all weather conditions designed for the general public: a construction of liberty and regulation, anyone who starts looking for something will find nothing but a trail.

Following Lehrner's explorations of the urban periphery, one is fascinated by the alleged contrast between precise observation and the generic nature of his subjects: Lehrner is giving a platform to the subtle differentiations And it is not the kind of boredom that is perceived as forced and unpleasant, but rather the leisure that makes Lehrner go his way.