VOL. 29
Studio Shots
„Thus, the view from Bartleby’s window was a brick wall,
and the view from the other side of the office,
though wider, was only another brick wall.“
Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener. A Story from Wall Street.
With Studio Shots VOL. 29, Scherübel reactivates an almost archetypal motif in the history of wallpaper: the brick wall. Conceived as an open series of wall‑filling photographic wallpapers, the commissioned work spans seven floors of the EVN headquarters and integrates precisely into its architectural structure. Each level presents a distinct configuration of a brick wall, whose coloration, traces of aging, and specific jointing techniques produce an individuality that is almost portrait‑like. Through their hyperreal surfaces, the motifs deliberately distinguish themselves from conventional wallpapers and refer to concrete post‑Fordist sites—former production facilities that, in the course of urban transformation processes, first served artists as studios and later became coveted living spaces, often preserving their visible brick structures.
In the institutional context of the evn collection—where exhibition space and working environment spatially and programmatically interlock—this motif gains a special signification. Scherübel’s intervention alludes both to earlier architectural modifications of the modernist building by Gustav Peichl, Franz Kiener, and Wilhelm Hubatsch, and to the industrial and social histories that have shaped the region of Maria Enzersdorf. Its historic brick factories were among the central drivers of local industrialization in the 19th century and formed an essential breeding ground for the emerging workers’ movement.
Studio Shots VOL. 29 continues Scherübel’s ongoing engagement with the re- and deconstruction of historical artworks and presentation spaces, as established in his Period Room projects (Cranach’s Holy Productivity VOL. 28, 2024, among others). At the same time, the work connects to earlier investigations in which the artist reads surfaces as cultural markers and reflects on the structural conditions of labor, productivity, and their aesthetic framing (Working Pants (Late 20th and Early 21st Century) VOL. 14, 2011–2022; Adaptation (Bartleby) VOL. 23, 2015–2016).
The work forms the most recent part of an oeuvre that Scherübel has organized since 2011 according to the model of a multi-volume book. His "Volumes" comprise artworks, exhibitions, and publications alike, creating an overarching structure in which production, contextualization, and documentation merge into one another.
With the kind support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec