Snehta Residency presents Julius Pristauz's solo exhibition TOOLS / TIME, as the closing event of his two month residency at Snehta. The opening will take place on Tuesday, May 21st 2024, at 19:00.

Julius Pristauz, born in Austria, currently lives and works in Berlin. His work expands from sculpture, installation and video to performance and curatorial practice. In his solo exhibition at Snehta Residency, he will present new works in a variety of media, most of them produced during his two-month stay in Athens as an artist granted the Styria – Artist – In – Residence Scholarship (in the context of Snehta Residency collaboration with the Provincial Government of Styria / St. A.iR program). 

His work frequently explores the dynamics between public and private spheres and the multifaceted process of identity construction – extending beyond traditional confines of body, gender, sexuality, and race – to encompass both individual and collective identities, including corporate personas. Additionally, he examines how these concepts influence urban environments and architectural design.

The exhibition takes the form of a site-specific installation that contains sculpture, video, painting as well as an intervention in the lightbox that stands in front of the main Snehta studio space. Pristauz explores a possible bridging between the concept of time and the practice of performance, both approached through a subjective point of view, but also strongly linked to what the artist himself calls architectures of attention. 

He recently developed a keen interest in sports, not just as an element of pop culture, but as a medium for hinting on the nationalist projections, patriotism, and other forms of collective expression. This interest led him to Greece, where he investigated the architectural and queer potential of stadia and arenas. These structures, some of the earliest and most unusual in architecture, are designed to be versatile, transforming and adapting to serve diverse functions.

Stadia, with their distinct round and oval designs, occupy a unique position in architectural theory, particularly within the realm of queer spaces, challenging the norms of conventional architecture. Pristauz draws on these concepts to explore parallels between different performing subjects, creating narratives that extend across both space and time within the exhibition environment.