Opening and summer party, June 11, 2024, 6 pm
Exhibition, June 12 – September 13, 2024
Steffi Parlow, a trained visual artist and cook, creates situations characterized by ambiguity. She invites people to be open, to open themselves to her ideas. One of her media is food dishes, which she not only conceives but also prepares on her own. Parlow takes a multifaceted approach to cooking and eating. “Particularly in the context of food, I am interested in the discrepancy between visual aversion, unconditional curiosity, and gustatory devotion. Texture and consistency play just as big a role as taste and memories, whether in industrially processed foods or elaborately handmade ones,” says the artist. To make cooking a primary form of artistic expression and pursue paths beyond those of the gourmet kitchen means granting a fundamental human activity the attention it deserves.
In Steffi Parlow’s practice, the temporary encounter at a performance or a dinner sometimes becomes the work itself. For the artist, the design of the involved objects and spaces as well as the resulting situations are genuine sculptural tasks. The elements she employs, such as sculptures, installations, or unusual containers for food, are co-performers on par with the artist and her guests. Central to Steffi Parlow’s method is switching between the realms of art and cooking or prompting overlaps at certain points. Her sculptural and installation practice, her social engagement, her culinary activities—all of this is thrown into one pot, while she explores what “performing” can mean in very specific constellations and how it pertains to the creation of objects, processes, and spaces of action. The interfaces between performative action, object, and social interaction guide her artistic practice. For Kunstraum Lakeside, Steffi Parlow will develop a new installation.
Steffi Parlow (b. 1983 in the former GDR) lives and works in Vienna.
www.steffiparlow.com
