rauminhalt_harald bichler
space & content

The exhibition “V a p o r w a r e - Nostalgia of the future” presents Patrick Rampelotto’s latest work dealing with the misappropriation of aesthetic canons.

 

V a p o r w a r e refers to products that were conceptualized and advertised but never manufactured, whereas V a p o r w a v e is a movement that started around 2010 among emerging electronic musicians sharing a taste for anonymity, unorthodox postmodern imagery and slowed down samples of pop hits. Their music is available for free online, but never printed on CD or vinyl. Rampelotto translated those two virtual realms into objects conveying a floating sense of time and provoking mixed feelings: a bubblegum dreamy comfort, as well as an uncanny dejà-vu. 

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Rampelotto’s set-up mimics the sumptuous kitsch of a Vaporwave album cover. Alongside a miniature reproduction of the Venus de Milo, exotic plants and neon lights are to be seen under a chandelier and masks from his trophy-series. Rampelotto’s evolving work with metal cups finds a new expression in a collage staging one of his “Totems” in a parody of monumentality. A daybed, combining minimalist abstraction and extravagance, re-enacts ironically the aesthetic of the modern movement. The exhibition also shows a crystal glass from the J. & L. Lobmeyr archive to which Rampelotto gave a new life and function.