Ulrike Lienbacher

Ulrike Lienbacher (born 1963 in Oberndorf bei Salzburg) is an Austrian artist whose preferred media include Drawing, Sculpture] and Photographyhttps://www.galerie-krinzinger.at/artists/17159/ulrike-lienbacher/biography/.
== Biography and Oeuvre ==
Ulrike Lienbacher studied sculpturehttps://www.wienerzeitung.at/nachrichten/kultur/kunst/galerie/680822-Ulrike-Lienbacher.html at the Mozarteum in Salzburg from 1981 to 1987 and has been active as an artist since the late 1980s. She was appointed president of the Salzburger Kunstverein art organisation for a term of office in 2001.https://www.derstandard.at/consent/tcf/story/520657/die-neue-praesidentin-renoviert-das-haus She led the sculpture class at the Mozarteum University Salzburg from 2017 until 2022.
As an artist, Ulrike Lienbacher herself ascribes her works to the categories of drawing, sculpture and photography.https://www.galerie-krinzinger.at/artists/17159/ulrike-lienbacher/biography/ For example, in the exhibition catalog "Vier Hefte" from 2000, whose four booklets (including a text booklet) are each devoted to one of these artistic forms of expression. Her entire oeuvre revolves around the human body.Silvia Eiblmayr. „Seelen“ and „Leistungskörper“, p. 84–92. In: Ulrike Lienbacher. Catalogue. Zeichnung / Objekt / Fotografie / Video. Edited by Silvia Eiblmayr/Galerie im Taxispalais. Vienna: COMET, 2007. ISBN 978-3-9502046-6-7 ‘Generally speaking, it is the difference between the media that Lienbacher is interested in.’ Thomas D. Trummer. Ex-Position. On Ulrike Lienbacher's latest series of photographs. p.69–75. In: Ulrike Lienbacher. nude, pensive. Salzburg: Fotohof, 2013
Ulrike Lienbacher adopts a specific, discrete approach for each of her media: in sculpture, her serial works are characterised by forms striving for perfection.Christian Kravagna. Bodies without Qualities. p. 3–15. In: Ulrike Lienbacher. 4 Hefte. Vienna: Galerie Krinzinger, 2000. ISBN 3-901756-17-5 In photography, the approach is similarly serial, but due to the ‘ideology of truth’ and the ‘realism’ Reinhard Braun. Genuine Portraits? On body politics and image politics in the works of Ulrike Lienbacher. p. 66–73. In: Ulrike Lienbacher. Catalogue. Zeichnung / Objekt / Fotografie / Video. Edited by Silvia Eiblmayr/Galerie im Taxispalais. Vienna: COMET, 2007. ISBN 978-3-9502046-6-7 inherent in the medium, Lienbacher situates it closer to science. In an essay on her portrait photographs the curator Reinhard Braun observed that ‘for Ulrike Lienbacher, photography becomes a technically mediated constellation, which is always also culturally labelled’, and that these portrait works ’take us into a controversial field of political and ideological debate’. ibid. 
In Lienbacher’s drawings, the clearly executed line appears as controlled as it is delicate and fractured: it is the essential design medium, conceptual in its origin yet far removed from any gestural automatism. These are not sketched outlines, but autonomous works in their own right; rather than capture something spontaneously, they are the expression of an entirely conceptual approach Roger Malbert. drawing people. The human figure in contemporary art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2015. ISBN 978-0-500-29163-4. p.46. The contours define the often fragmentary bodies in a condensed and reduced manner, thereby shaping the character of her image-making.Wall Text from Kunst-Musik-Tanz, Staging the Derra de Moroda Dance Archives, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, 2016
The cultural theorist Christina Nägele sees Lienbacher’s drawn body images as the ‘cartographies’ of subjects flowing between individuality and social constraints: bodies that ‘can no longer be one’, but aesthetic, fragile bodies hinted at through a continuous line that perform serial movements ‘at the very moment it is disintegrating’.cf. Christina Nägele. Body Notations. p. 109. In: Catalog Mapping the Body. The Body in Contemporary Life. Edited by Galerie im Taxispalais, Julia Brennacher, Lena Nievers, Jürgen Tabor. Vienna: YfmK Verlag für moderne Kunst GmbH, 2016.
An example of her early works are the latex sculptures (Salzburger Kunstverein Ringgalerie, 1994)[8] – minimalism-inspired ‘objects [...], in a very peculiar ambivalence between passivity and activity [...], which have to deal with the limited space that they are confronted with’. Objects that create a ‘suspended state between daily concreteness and distanced abstraction’ – not just for themselves, but also for the space that surrounds them.Silvia Eiblmayr. „Seelen“ and „Leistungskörper“, p. 84–92. In: Ulrike Lienbacher. Catalogue. Zeichnung / Objekt / Fotografie / Video. Edited by Silvia Eiblmayr/Galerie im Taxispalais. Vienna: COMET, 2007. ISBN 978-3-9502046-6-7 On the place that the ‘body’ occupies in Lienbacher’s oeuvre Martin Hochleitner notes: ‘It is the information medium, motif and pictorial object; it defines space and refers to iconographic connections, planes of meaning and social projections.’Martin Hochleitner. S. 33–35. In: Catalog Ulrike Lienbacher. Edited by Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum. Weitra: publication N 1 / Bibliothek der Provinz, 2001. As an apparatus of movement with coded as well as unconscious gestures and poses, the human body not only plays a role as bearer of psychological states and emotions, but is also seen as a form to be analysed and grasped anew time and again.
In her art, Ulrike Lienbacher explores the dependency system of social norms and regulations as well as notions of discipline and control: she depicts the human body within ‘a culture of hygiene and health’.Roger Malbert. drawing people. The human figure in contemporary art. London: Thames & Hudson, 2015. ISBN 978-0-500-29163-4. p.46 In her artistic oeuvre, the human body is a ‘bearer of socio-cultural history into which the social value system is inscribed: ‘the body serving as a backdrop on which social phenomena are shown’ Exhibition Text. Optimal. Krinzinger Gallery, Vienna, 2015.
In Catalogue (2007), Lienbacher summarises her main reference points as follows: ‘the discourse on hygiene and health, the way in which we deal with dirt and cleanliness, the cult of fitness or the wellness wave, which have swept through Europe’s tourism industry [...]. Purity is order, and dirt is associated with disorder and menace; these are social norms which specify for the individual what is regarded as valuable and worthwhile, and what is seen as inferior.’Silvia Eiblmayr. „Seelen“ and „Leistungskörper“, p. 84–92. In: Ulrike Lienbacher. Catalogue. Zeichnung / Objekt / Fotografie / Video. Edited by Silvia Eiblmayr/Galerie im Taxispalais. Vienna: COMET, 2007. ISBN 978-3-9502046-6-7 Sports, the hygiene discourse with its notions of health and fitness, but also sexuality and desire are recurring themes in many of Lienbacher’s works. Improved performance, ‘the ideological image of the elite athletic body’, discipline and perfection are fetishes of a ‘casting society’ founded on efficiency and self-optimisation, with everyone in a competitive situation with everyone else.Press Text Optimal, Krinzinger Gallery, Vienna, 2015
Counterbalancing such disciplining pressures is the pleasure principle; likewise the purity commandments as opposed to fantasies of grime and oblivious (auto)eroticism. Lienbacher sees efficiency and performance – both of which are notions particular to sports and economics –as transferable to sexuality in their bid to shape and regulate: ‘Sexuality is not only the sphere of freedom and dissolution of restraint but also a stage for role plays, the dramaturgy of which we not uncommonly write ourselves.’Press Text Interieurs, Modelle. Krinzinger Gallery, Vienna, 2012
The work Vorlagen [literally: Templates, but also: Submissions] shown at Krinzinger Projekte in 2012 is a case in point. In a block of drawings, Lienbacher depicts various schematic positions of sexual congress. The compact arrangement of these individual sheets lends these depictions a serial touch, making them appear exercise-like.ibid. The Interieurs photo series, which was on show at the same exhibition, replicates the presentable interiors of middle-class apartments. Yet hanging among these tasteful furnishings are sexually explicit photographs, framed like works of art. ‘These images are more omnipresent than ever before in history: everyone has them in mind, and yet the sexual seems to be more unspecific and taboo than ever. I was interested in showing the secretive and the fantasised as a matter of course.’ibid. 
== Exhibitions (Selection) ==
* 2021 Wilde Kindheit, Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz
* 2020 Schwarz Weiß & Grau, Albertina, Vienna
* 2019 all natural. 100% Sammlungen, Museum der Moderne Salzburg
* 2017 Die innere Haut – Kunst und Scham, MARTa – Herford
* 2017 ICON – Idea.Ideal.Inspiration, Galerie Krinzinger, Wien
* 2016 Kunst-Musik-Tanz, Staging the Derra de Moroda Dance Archives, Museum der Moderne Salzburg
* 2016 The Body Politic, Gallery of Photography, Dublin
* 2016 Mapping the Body, Taxispalais – Kunsthalle Tirol, Innsbruck
* 2015 o p t i m a l, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna
* 2014 Bricolage, Kunsthaus Nexus, Saalfelden
* 2013 Hohe Dosis. Recherchen zum Fotografischen Heute, Fotohof, Salzburg
* 2012 Interieurs, Modelle, Galerie Krinzinger Projekte, curated_by, Wien
* 2012 At Your Service, Technisches Museum Wien
* 2012 Parallelwelt Zirkus, Kunsthalle Wien
* 2012 Sport in der Kunst, MOCAK, Museum for Contemporary Art Krakow
* 2010 Elitekörper // Revolte, Salzburger Kunstverein
* 2010 Display, Fotogalerie Wien
* 2009 Printed Matter, Fotomuseum Winterthur
* 2008 Nach 1970, aus der Sammlung der Albertina, Albertina, Wien
* 2008 Cutting Realities, Austrian Cultural Forum New York
* 2007 Galerie Krinzinger, Wien
* 2007 Ich und Du Wir und Es, Billboards, Kunsthaus Bregenz
* 2006 Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck
* 2004 Diaries and Dreams, Ursula Blickle Stiftung, Kraichtal
* 2003 Künstlerinnen – Positionen 1945 bis heute, Kunsthalle Krems
* 2002 Aufräumen, MAK – Galerie, Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
* 2002 Pin Up Übungen, Der Transparente Raum (von VALIE EXPORT), Vienna
* 2001 Landesgalerie Oberösterreich, Linz
* 2001 Pin Up Übungen / 10 + 10 Fotografien, Camera Austria, Graz
* 2001 Gefesselt – entfesselt. Österreichische Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts, Galeria Zachęta, Warsaw
* 2000 Ulrike Lienbacher, Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna
* 2000 Lebt und arbeitet in Wien, Kunsthalle, Vienna
* 1999 Nippes, Rupertinum, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg
* 1995 Grazer Werkgruppe, Neue Galerie, Studio, Graz
== Artworks in Public Space ==
* 2016 „Farbfilter“, Seniorenwohnheim Hellbrunn, SalzburgKulturbericht Stadt Salzburg 2016
* 2016/17 „Die Bank vor dem Haus“, Amt der Salzburger Landesregierung / Haus der Volkskulturen, Salzburg
* 2010 „Kreisverkehr“, Gänserndorf, Lower AustriaLandmarks. Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Niederösterreich. 1988–2018. Herausgegeben von Katharina Blaas-Pratschner, Brigitte Huck, Susanne Neuburger; für die Abteilung Kunst und Kultur, Amt der NÖ Landesregierung. Wien: VfmK Verlag für moderne Kunst GmbH. S. 127
* 2007 „Fliegender Teppich“, Bundesgymnasium Vöcklabruck, Upper Austria
* 2007 Gestaltung des Mehrzweckraums, Seniorenzentrum Franz Hillinger, Linz
* 2002 „Verkehrte Idylle“, Gemeindebau Brandmayrgasse, ViennaPDF "Das Wiener Modell. Wohnbau für die Stadt des 21. Jahrhunderts"
* 1999 Platzgestaltung, Höhere Bundeslehranstalt für wirtschaftliche Berufe, Salzburg
== Books ==
* 2013 nude, pensive. With texts by Elke Krasny, Thomas Trummer. Edited by Hemma Schmutz. Salzburg: FOTOHOF edition. ISBN 978-3-902675-77-4
* 2007 Katalog. With texts by Reinhard Braun, Silvia Eiblmayr, August Ruhs. Edited by Silvia Eiblmayr / Galerie im Taxispalais. Vienna: Comet Books. ISBN 978-3-9502046-6-7
* 2005 Rapunzel, Rapunzel. With a text by Stella Rollig. Vienna: Comet Books. ISBN 3-9502046-3-6
* 2001 Ulrike Lienbacher. With a text by Martin Hochleitner. Edited by Oberösterreichisches Landesmuseum. Weitra: publication N 1 / Bibliothek der Provinz. ISBN 3-85252-235-8
* 2000 4 Hefte. With a text by Christian Kravagna. Vienna: Galerie Krinzinger. ISBN 3-901756-17-5
* 1994 Ulrike Lienbacher. With texts by Silvia Eiblmayr. Edited by Ulrike Lienbacher and Salzburger Kunstverein. Salzburg: Salzburger Kunstverein. ISBN 3-901264-09-4
== Awards ==
* 2009 Irma von Troll-Borostyáni-Preis: Preisträgerin der Stadt Salzburghttps://www.stadt-salzburg.at/index.php?id=58809
* 2001 Förderpreis für Bildende Kunst des Bundeshttps://www.bmkoes.gv.at/Kunst-und-Kultur/preise/outstanding-artist-awards.html
* 2000 Großer Kunstpreis des Landes Salzburghttps://derive.at/texte/ulrike-lienbacher-kartenhaus/https://www.salzburg.gv.at/kultur_/Seiten/traklhaus-ausstellung2001_2.aspx
Category:Austrian artists
Category:Austrian people
Category:1963 births