shop architecture | Lena Lapschina

Lena Lapschina “This is not a gallery!” 2021 light object 130 by 160 cm [exhibition view] © Lena Lapschina / Verena Mayrhofer

With her hastily scrawled note “This is not a gallery!”, complete with exclamation marks and double underlines, Lena Lapschina sows confusion in the shop window. Passers-by find themselves engaging in self-dialogues. “This is not a gallery!” they murmur. “So what is it then? What’s happening here?” Through this work, Lena Lapschina highlights the decorative-aesthetic function of the glass case in urban space and the voids that emerge when the rhythm of stores and commerce is disrupted.

I’m citing here the catalogue for the schaudrei exhibit at ent, where my latest light object, “This is not a gallery!”, is on display.

The above-stated confusion, I have to admit, is produced by taking a means of advertising (the “neon” sign), letting it glow, and injecting the word “not”.

Shout-out: The beautiful photographs here were shot on location by Verena Mayrhofer.

Please tap or click on any photo for a full-screen experience.

A Viennese off-space, basically a shopfront composed of eighteen identical shop windows, is home to my latest media work of art. With “Propaganda”, I’m showing honour and reverence for the city’s great past in shop architecture.

The installation indeed is begging for the attention of passers-by, like any good window-dressing – but purely to bewilder them. Thanks to 5832 LED lamps switched at a speed of 30 cycles per second, I put visitors into a trance-like state, leave them in this state for a minute, and then slowly start to enlighten them as to what this is. The word “PROPAGANDA” appears, in glowing capital letters. And a confession: “LENA LAPSCHINA”. Smoke. Loop.

On view every day through Feb. 28th from dusk to midnight.

Note to conservators: This media installation uses 18 off-the-shelf Cielos Move LED panels, 5 Video Control Units, approx. 100 m of Ethernet wire, and a portion of Zumtobel-proprietary software.