Josef Dabernig

n the text essay Melodramatic Film Miniatures as a Blueprint for
Dematerialized Sculpture, Josef Dabernig outlines five decades of his
artistic practice.
He traces a trajectory from his studies in figurative sculpture to conceptual
approaches encompassing hand drawing, CAD graphics, photography, text,
and installation. In the mid-1990s, Dabernig underwent a paradigm shift
towards the medium of film, subsuming the complexity of his methods under
the notion of Extended Sculpture.
His essay treads a fine line between fictional cinema and structural film. The
artist not only analyses and questions his own means of expression; he also
frames his observations in a lucid and precise language that exemplifies the
dilemmas of proximity and distance, and of concrete versus abstract
articulation.