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Susanne Schuda

Introduction

In Schuda’s World – the Spiritual in Susanne Schuda’s “The Cell“

Susanne Schuda’s art features the self-assertion of the individual within society and with a constructed reality.  By means of exaggeration, pointed emphasis, reconstruction of familiar elements and the deformation of the habitual, the mechanisms the individual is exposed to become perceptible. In the beginning, constraints and fears of the human being as well as wishes and hopes associated with them were influenced by religions, ideologies and philosophies of life. Meanwhile, these “grand narrations“  have been reduced to absurdity and replaced by the reality construction of the media. In the consumer craze that goes hand in hand with this development, body and psyche of the human being are successfully merchandised. Pseudo-religious concepts of a better life as well as manifold power and violence structures determine the new contexts.
Every religion regulates to protect the body and prohibits physical abuse. This may also be misunderstood as a basis for a long and happy life. The promised paradise turns out to be unattainable, so we have to realise it here on Earth. The struggle for eternal youth and a successful life is evident in the accumulation of material values and the intensive occupation with appearances. Religious or esoteric elements constitute a spiritual, ideological background for the treatment of our body. Through our own existence, we become creators and try to outdo God whom we have created ourselves.
Susanne Schuda’s art is located in this field of tension. However, her position is neither admonitory nor oriented towards originality. In fact, she creates a functioning parallel world consisting of familiar set pieces with an uncanny and repulsive effect. The familiar has transformed itself to something monstrous.
In her work “The Cell“, Susanne Schuda presents a multimedia installation that transfers the exhibition space into a sacred situation. The cell as the indispensable building block of life is at the centre of this worship. Only one hundredth of a millimetre across, only recognisable under the microscope, the cell ensures that an organism is at all viable. Only specialists can explore how it works. A stunned lay person is helpless in face of its transformations.
The artist gives this riddle a spiritual background and employs a fictional narrative structure, in which the protagonists – “My Mother“, “Son of a Bitch“ and “The King“ – reflect on the issue in dialogic form. They recite their stereotypical clichés like a mantra.  These figures have lost their actual identity.
They represent positions which either become effective in one person at the same time or prevail in one case or another. All of them are somehow connected with the proliferation of cells which is considered to be supreme. It is possible to accept this proliferation as a given fact – there is no reason to oppose it, it is rather regarded as a new chance. In any case, there is a reference to an abandonment to God. “The King” matches this way of thinking most closely. He has advanced into higher spheres. There he devotes himself to collective proliferation. “My Mother” still seems to believe in Botox, Pilates and Size Zero. She seals herself off and is concerned with the sanctuary of her body. She rebels against dissolution, even though she too has already lost. “Son of a Bitch“, who is at odds with his life, is aware of the inevitability of the development – eventually of the proliferation – and tries to bear witness. As photographer he documents the processes that go hand in hand with the transformation. His bearing witness is a religious act, just like the battle “My Mother” is willing to fight. “The King” has decided to abandon himself as much as possible and will thus – at least in his own view – become the Enlightened One, the Messiah.
It is clearly recognisable how the protagonists move as mirror-images of western capitalist behaviour. The religious element is marked by a certainty that is no longer there and seems to be blurred. The aim is an obsessive holding on to the senseless which is paradoxically mistaken as the basics. 
In our life, the media have made an image of the body – for a better life. Schuda’s figures try to follow up on this “promise of salvation“ and end up in increasingly absurd invocations. They have stopped trying to conciliate the cell – “My Mother” not entirely. With her protagonists, Susanne Schuda has already gone a step further and draws conclusions from the real, present development. Thus she deliberately makes use of the history of the body’s image – not only with regard to art, but with regard to the general view of the human body as such.
So the art of Modernism presents us with the deformed, manipulated and destroyed body. The beau ideal following antiquity was suddenly considered to be obsolete.  This ideal was taken up and perverted In totalitarian systems such as facism, which glorified strong, athletic and healthy bodies. In contrast, Modernism has replaced it by a deconstructivist, analytical concept. Influenced by the capitalist media society, we have again distanced ourselves from Modernism and are pursuing grotesque physical ideals, which Susanne Schuda meets with mockery and an emphatically formal quality.

Günther Holler-Schuster

Biography

Born in 1970 in Vienna, Austria. Lives and works in Vienna.
Video, internet, digital collages, installations and public art.

Education
Studies of visual media design at the Universität für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna
Class of Peter Weibel, Valie Export and Karel Dudesek.


Solo Exhibitions
2009
‚Die Zelle ist ewig und sinnfrei‘ GALERIE DANA CHARKASI, Vienna
‚Die Zelle ist ewig und sinnfrei‘ Neue Galerie Graz Studio, Graz / A

2008
‚The Poet‘, k/haus Passagegalerie, Vienna

2007
‚the schudas reloaded - ich lass`die Better runter‘ GALERIE DANA CHARKASI, Vienna

2005
‚the schudas‘ PLATTFORM – Raum für Kunst, Vienna

2004
‚It´s not about you!‘ Kulturforum ega Lounge, Vienna


Group Exhibitions (Selection)
2010
Triennale Linz 1.0, OK, Offenes Kulturhaus, Linz / A
EMAF 2010, Osnabrück / GER
groupshow, 1000 Plateuas, Chengdu / China

2009
‘Open Studios’ Red Gate Residency Exhibition, Beijing / China
‚The Poet. I Don‘t Want to Set the World on Fire‘ with Florian Schmeiser, MediaNoche, New York / USA
‚Rewind / Fast Forward‘ Neue Galerie Graz, Graz / A
‚Breathless’ curated by Adam Budak, Markthalle Wien Mitte, Vienna

2008
‚Another Tomorrow: Young Video Art from the Collection of the Neue Galerie Graz‘ Sloughtfoundation, Philadelphia / USA
‚paraflows‘ MAK-Gegenwartskunstdepot, Gefechtsturm Arenbergpark, Vienna
‚When Fears become Form‘ CAN / Centre d’art Neuchatel, Neuchatel / CH
‚Zeigt her Eure Körper, zeigt her Eure Seelen‘ lothringer13/laden, Munich / GER

2007
‚fragemented reassembled‘ Public art Linz, Linz / A
‚use‘ Galerie link, Edinburgh / GB
‚6 Galleries from Vienna‘ Rathaus Galerie, Munich / GER

2006
‚Die Revolution sind wir‘ Kunstwirtschaft, Graz / A

2005
‚aus dem Wachkoma‘ KunstPanorama, Luzern / CH

2004
‚the personell is political und peinlich‘ Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna
‚televisuelles leben‘ Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg / A
‚Videolounge‘ Diagonale, Graz / A
‚le signal‘ FIPA, Biarritz
‚viper‘ Basel / CH
‚Stuttgarter Filmwinter‘ Stuttgart / GER

2002/03
‚pastperfect.at‘ historical internet project with Jakob Krameritsch and the University of Vienna

2001
‚shopping‘ Generali Foundation Wien, Vienna
‚Freestyle‘ ARC, Vienna
‚Kunst sieht fern‘ Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna

1998 ‚Nach 68, Verlangen & Begehren‘ Salle de Bal, Vienna

1997
‚Music from Austria‘ video for E. Schimana, Moscow Forum, Oval Hall, Moscow / RUS
‚Personal‘ video for Klub Zwei, Zonen der Verstörung, steirischer Herbst, Graz / A
‚Selbstinszenierung 1 & Lonely Nights‘ schuda/schmeiser, Kunstbüro, Vienna


Public Art schuda/schmeiser
in cooperation with Florian Schmeiser (schuda/schmeiser)
2008
‚Templesleeper‘ temporary interactive installation in front of five shoppingmalls in Styria, in cooperation with KiÖR Steiermark

2007
‚ValYou’  intervention in public space, in cooperation with Christa Ziegler ‚the english lovers‘ Webproject

2004
‚Chaos in the shelf‘  permanent interactive installation in the vocational school of trade Theresienfeld, Niederösterreich / A
‚No Money‘ in cooperation with Peter Koger, social sculpture, Vienna

2001
‚Österreich ist frei‘ interactive installation in the frame of Stadttore 2000, Schwarzenbergplatz, Vienna

2000
‚instant island‘, in cooperation with Hummer, installation and intervention, Praterstern, Vienna

1999
‚instant living‘ in cooperation with Hummer, installation and intervention, Praterstern, Vienna

1997
‚taste the waste‘ Praterstern, Vienna
‚Azzurro‘ Installation, k/haus Passage, Vienna


Theater Productions
2006
‚Playing Mums‘ 25 min., 3D- und Animationsvideo für gleichnamiges Theaterstück, Regie: Nehle Dick, Kosmos Theater, Wien
‚Hikikomori‘ 90 min., Videocollage für gleichnamiges Theaterstück, Regie: Dana Csapo, TAG, Theater an der Gumpendorferstraße, Vienna


Awards
2008
Marianne von Willemer Preis, award for women in the arts, Linzer Frauenbüro

2004
Förder- und Publikumspreis beim MEDIDA-Prix, 2004 (for „pastperfect.at“)

2002
Sonderpreis, Vienna Video Award (for Selbstinszenierung)


Publications
2008
Video Edition Austria - release 02
kunstforum international

2007
spike, spring 2007

2006
Temporäre Räume: Konzepte zur Stadtnutzung, Florian Haydn, Robert Teml (Hrsg.)
Birkhäuser Verlag, Berlin

2005
urban china, chinesische Periodika, 02/2005
18.Stuttgarter Filmwinter

2004
Kunst im öffentlichen Raum, NÖ Band, 7 SpringerWienNewYork, St.Pölten