Weekly Conversations... with Paul Leitner

Paul Leitner, four at six, 2013, alarm clock and soft cardboard

Meet former local artist Paul Leitner. Born in 1983 in Vienna he completed his civil service at Werkstätten und Kultur Haus Wien. In 2004, he went on a 9 months study trip to Asia and began his studies at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Transmediale Kunst, Brigitte Kowanz (2005-2011). In 2011, he recieved an award for the diploma project “paper-jack” by Lower Austria Cultural Department. He was assistant at Studio Alfons Schilling from 2007 until 2013. He lives and works in Vienna.

We were interested in his project Untitled Contemporary and the affects of his study trip abroad.
 

You are using one of our workspaces as a local artist. Can you tell us about the project, you have been focusing on during this last 2 months?

At the moment im working on several new sculptures for my upcoming solo show at Untitled Contemporary on the October 20, 2016 and the present future section booth on Artissima in Turin on November 4, 2016. Recently I have been focusing on 2 works: one is a text matrix build with M22 railway nuts, witch ended up to be roughly 450 kgs… And the second one includes several geometrical sculptures braided out of roller measurement tapes.

You have already stayed at the studio das weisse haus as a guest artist in 2015. Has this experience been different then the last one or did you feel a similar athmosphere?

Since i moved in in August, i haven’t seen many people at the shared studio so far, i guess they are all on summer break. I really like the whole building, and the nice calm yard.

And finally, we asked Paul Leitner about his study trip to Asia, and if this special and different athmosphere had a big influence on his works, following the trip.

This trip was after i finished my civil service and i was still unsure what to study/do. I kinda felt a desperate need for a change and decided to leave for Asia as long as my money would carry. Without working abroad it was actually enough for whole 9 months and got me into studying arts. I made a few short videos on this trip, which i used for my application portfolio. In the first semester i got so much into working with different materials, that i never used a camera even once ever since.