BERLIN & VIENNA

13 Lambs is an installation series that I first presented in 2017. The first 13 Lambs installation contained 13 white lambs in plastic bags and a 14th bag containing production waste from the 13 Lambs production. The 14th bag is a reference to the way we as a society treat animals.

This series of works is my first to deal centrally with the topic of spеciеsism and аnti-spеciеsism. We live in a society with a spеciеsist belief system. This means that the laws are interpreted in such a way that animals are things that are below humans and have little to no rights. Antispеciеsism is the opposite philosophy and belief that humans are not above other species and
have no right to еnslаvе, еxploit and kiII other species.

TANG CONTEMPORARY, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

Tang Contemporary Art Seoul presents Unpack Reveal Unleash, a new exhibition with 7 different artists – Anouk Lamm Anouk, Diren Lee, Guillermo Lorca, Jangkoal, Jonas Burgert, Olga Esther, and YoonHyup – from October 20 to November 25, 2023.
While facing artworks in the exhibition hall, which are created by different artists with different life experiences and insights, you could listen to the stories hidden inside and could feel the presence of contemporary artists. You will finally find yourself looking at the world with a different point of view, along with the artists’ point of views.

FRAUEN MUSEUM WIESBADEN

post/pre Lesbian Jazz

frauen museum wiesbaden presents the first solo exhibition in a museum by the winner of the Strabag Artaward International 2021, painter and concept artist Anouk Lamm Anouk. With large-format paintings, drawings, and shaped canvases, across a total of three exhibition levels, the museum, founded in 1984, will be presenting the hitherto most extensive overview of the work of Anouk Lamm Anouk. The pieces explore in a subtle and yet highly expressive way the question of identity, queer intimacy, and emancipation from the customary social pigeonholing; indeed, it is the first non-binary position to go on show in frauen museum wiesbaden.

In paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations, and text pieces Anouk Lamm Anouk explores the meaning of identities and the body in relation to society. In this context, the works do not submit to any ready category either in terms of content or artistically. Rather, they seem to resist any conventional dichotomy, are at one and the same time abstract and yet explicit, silent and yet lucid, reduced and yet highly expressive. They consciously eschew all things concrete or descriptive that usually serve to foster an identity. What holds the artist’s attention is the space in-between, the ultimate non-space that is completely free of and simultaneously free for interpretation and rearrangement. 

Anouk Lamm Anouk sees their identity as non-binary and has for a long time focused on issues of queer intimacy, lesbian visibility, and the emancipation from learned patriarchal structures. For all the intensity of the themes addressed, the formal language is subtle and unobtrusive, while also attesting to an immense concentration. 

Anouk Lamm Anouk is one of the shooting stars of the young Austrian art scene. After studying Fine Art at Berlin’s University of the Arts and at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, they graduated from the latter in 2021. Their solo and group shows have included König Gallery Seoul, South Korea (2023); Fundacja Stefana Gierowskiego, Warsaw, Poland (2022); Hotel Sacher, Vienna, Austria (2021); Austrian Cultural Forum, London, England (2020); and Belvedere21 Museum, Vienna (2014). In 2023, alongside participation in other international exhibitions, Anouk Lamm Anouk will be showing at the 8th International Painting Biennial in Chişinău, Moldavia. In 2021, Anouk won the main prize at the prestigious Strabag Artaward International.

© Text Studio Anouk Lamm Anouk and Frauen Museum Wiesbaden
© Images Janine Erkel Courtesy of Studio Anouk Lamm Anouk and Frauen Museum Wiesbaden

KÖNIG SEOUL

For Anouk Lamm Anouk, the temple is not limited to a physical space, it can be omnipresent. For the artist, the temple is a site of peace and tranquillity, a sacred space, and can be consciously seen in contrast to those places that our societies currently construct. This is also how DIFFERENT VISIONS OF TEMPLES can be understood: an overarching concept, embedding the idea of the temple within a given social structure, fostering an intimate relationship to other people and living beings, or even in their absence, in emptiness, peace, and contemplation.

The temple is a recurring element in the works of Anouk Lamm Anouk and is carried through this exhibition by figures and elements that symbolize the temple, of which three temples in particular are presented and made tangible for the viewer. The first temple is found in the abstract work series POST/PRE, which is currently comprised of more than 50 works. As the name of the series suggests, it is about the here and now, that is, what lies between the before and the after; the moment itself is its centre. In many cases, the abstract pictorial worlds feature a ring of fog as their anchor, affecting the viewer as if they were a kind of door or portal into an unknown dimension or a still undiscovered space.

The creative process behind POST/PRE is, for Anouk Lamm Anouk, already a kind of temple, due to the perseverance and contemplation required to produce the works. The strokes contained on the canvases are the result of a conscious act, each placed neatly next to one another in a process that can take from a few days to a few weeks to produce. According to the artist, “I work almost daily, which can mean that I don’t paint a single stroke all day, but still contemplate the works.” In POST/PRE, so-called ultimate “non-spaces” are depicted, the principle being that emptiness serves as the foundation for fullness, and that nothingness is everything. These “non-spaces” are meant to ground the viewer and help them dwell in the moment, anchored in the here and now, leaving the digital and its distractions behind and inviting viewers to linger. In an unmistakable abstract formal language, Anouk Lamm Anouk manages to make theirs an experience of the temple.

The second temple emerges through the herd of transparent abstracted sky horses. The deliberately fragile-looking animals hang in a densely packed arrangement, almost as if floating on the ceiling of the exhibition space. Yet, the herd also appears to be in motion, dynamic in their orientation, moving as a whole towards the exit, directly towards the viewer. But even though the creatures seem dynamic, the herd has something harmonious, calm, and peaceful about it. Celestial horses are to be understood here as mythological creatures that pull the sun chariot of the Greek sun god Helios, symbolizing the passage of time, or the movement of the sun from east to west. The passage of time is exactly what makes the moment central to the works. Anouk Lamm Anouk explains that “What many people may not be aware of, is the fact that the herd is actually a Matriarchy. The herd is led by a mare, and that decision is not one external to the group, but intrinsic to it. It is about clarity, stability, and calmness. Her leadership is the result of being, whereas that of the stallion comes about as a result of action, doing. This element makes horses and their social formation particularly exciting for me in contrast to the way in which our society is organized.” The herd can be said to embody a wish fulfilling image of wanting to be part of a group, of the desire for a functioning, harmonious social structure and togetherness.

The wall installation, GIRL CARES, made of brass fragments, encompasses the third temple. In it, a girl holds a lamb tightly; she carries the animal on her shoulder, heading for a kind of portal, or perhaps a mirror. On the genesis of this work, the artist describes that, “We have forgotten empathy and caring. For me, caring is a step back from the ego, focusing on the big picture. Engaging with someone other than yourself contains elements of both having arrived and peace that engenders.” The installation consists of two identical sets of brass fragments. On the one hand, the individual brass fragments were arranged figuratively – the titular girl and the lamb – and on the other hand, the elements were arranged differently to form an abstract structure. This formation represents a kind of abstracted deduction of the two living beings depicted on the other side. GIRL CARES is about empathy, one of the lost virtues in our society, according to Anouk Lamm Anouk.

© Text Marleen Anouk-Roubik 
© Images Cheonho Ahn Curtesy of König Galerie and Studio Anouk Lamm Anouk

HELIO TOWER, VIENNA

HELIO TOWER BY BEHF ARCHITECTS (STEPHAN FERENCZY), BUWOG, ART BY ANOUK LAMM ANOUK

© Images Sandro Zanzinger Courtesy Studio Anouk Lamm Anouk, BEHF Architects & BUWOG 

PATRICIA LOW CONTEMPORARY, GSTAAD, SWITZERLAND

Titled Lesbian Jazz; meditating in the Alps, the exhibition features works from two signature series: the figurative vignettes of the artist’s 30-strong Lesbian Jazz suite of works, and abstracts from their Zen-derived post/pre series. Executed in acrylic on Belgian linen in neutral tones, scenes of entwined female forms are juxtaposed with excerpts of poetic text – ‘you above me’; ‘skin to skin’ — in a delicate interplay of word and image. The works speak to the artist’s free-flowing, jazz-like draughtsmanship and their subtle treatment of intimacy — part of a stated aim to make visible the day-to-day of queer life and desire. Elsewhere, paintings from post/pre explore, with circular forms seeming to glow with otherworldly light, emptiness as a portal to a further dimension of thought. With this exhibition, the compositional features of both series appear increasingly related — figuration and abstraction beginning to meld.

© Text Studio Anouk Lamm Anouk & Patricia Low Contemporary
© Images Patricia Low Contemporary & Studio Anouk Lamm Anouk

STEFAN GIEROWSKI FOUNDATION, WARSAW

POST/PRE PAINTINGS FROM ANOUK LAMM ANOUK AT STEFAN GIEROWSKI FOUNDATION, WARSAW

© Images Stefan Gierowski Foundation

LANDESTHEATER LINZ CHRIS HARING | PETER I. TSCHAIKOWSKY

Swans, 2022, Textile Sculptures, each around 800cm / 315in hight

© Images Jonatan Salgado Romero

STEFAN GIEROWSKI FOUNDATION, WARSAW

STRABAG KUNSTFORUM

The artistic universe of Anouk Lamm Anouk is one at rest in itself, neither binary nor polarizing. Just as their abstract “post/pre” series evolves around the starting point of a circle set on canvas with water, the Ensō, the expression of the moment and of the ephemeral, Anouk seeks balance in their writings, drawings and paintings. Their intuitive method of composition creates a space that is difficult to grasp, where forms and signs create a world of harmony. Whether in abstract works or in “Lesbian Jazz”, Anouk takes a stand for an open society and the enriching lesbian gaze. Their exploration of sexuality, eroticism, rhythm and liberation opens up new spaces of thinking beyond unreflected, culturally shaped perspectives on the threshold between the self and the others. Anouk is oscillating between cultures, creating a world of diversity and inclusion. Their universe eludes hierarchy and patriarchal structures, is characterized by respect and equality and gives us hope for a different, better world.

— Dieter Buchhart 2022 about Anouk´s work and their solo show at STRABAG Kunstforum 

© Text Dieter Buchhart
© Images Eva Kelety Courtesy of Studio Anouk Lamm Anouk and Strabag Kunstforum

DIPLOMA SHOW AT THE GREAT MABLE HALL AT HOTEL SACHER, VIENNA

GALERIE STEINEK, VIENNA

„I miss the place where I am from“ ist auf dem Kopf stehend auf einigen von Anouks großformatigen Arbeiten zu lesen, darüber ein Lamm, fallend, schwebend, schwimmend, verloren umgeben von ganz viel Raum der somit viel Interpretationsspielraum schafft. Ein Lamm, das noch lebensunfähig im Mutterleib schwimmen könnte. Grundsätzlich ist das ungeborene Leben präsent. Zumal als Ikone – groß und frei, zumal als einsäumender Diener anderer Motive.

Im Dschungel ihres Œuvres schließen sich bei eindringlichem Betrachten scheinbare Beiläufigkeiten zu ganzheitlich, synergetischen Gesamtstrukturen zusammen. Vielleicht ein Zeichen ihrer Verhaftung im Animismus und Zen-Buddhismus – der Allbeseeltheit.

Wenige Striche, viel Fläche, vielleicht ein Kaninchen, vielleicht ein Lamm, vielleicht etwas dazwischen. Man könnte fast meinen, die Tierformen dienen nur als Platzhalter für zwischenmenschliche Verbindungen. Oder sind sie vielmehr präziser und deutlicher in ihrer Entfremdung?

Die Immanenz spiegelt sich in wiederkehrenden Motiven und Strukturen. „Im Ritual liegt das Potenzial der Veränderung und des Wachstums. Die Wiederholung führt zur Festigung und in dieser liegt wiederum das Liquide der Dinge – das Veränderliche und die Chance. So ist die Wiederholung das Fundament der Entwicklung und daher essenziell für mich. Das Leben besteht ausschließlich aus Wiederholungen, das Leben ist rituell. Atmen, schlafen, trinken, essen – wiederholen“ , sagt Anouk.

© Text Galerie Steinek & Studio Anouk Lamm Anouk
© Images Galerie Steinek & Studio Anouk Lamm Anouk

Semperdepot

Textile Sculpture, Black Velvet

© Images Anouk Lamm Anouk & Ira Tomic