VIENNA.- In her painting Maja Vukoje explores cultural hybridity and transculturality as basic conditions of our globalized lives. Over various stages of her artistic career, Vukoje has developed a distinct artistic language in which she not only focuses on the mixture and fusion of elements of different cultures as visual motifs. Vukoje also reflects these hybrid phenomena in the materials and artistic methods she applies, thus blurring the boundaries of painting as a medium.
The Belvedere 21 is hosting the artist’s most comprehensive solo show to date. The exhibition comprises some one hundred works from the past fifteen years, with an emphasis on her most recent work series. In the latter tropical fruit and commodities with colonial traces like coffee and sugar come face to face with symbols of our digitized everyday lives, motifs from popular culture, and iconic works of painterly abstraction. In a spatial intervention specially designed for this exhibition, Maja Vukoje also interweaves her exploration of the formal language of Modernism with questions of display.
Maja Vukoje was born in Düsseldorf in 1969. She studied painting at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She has won the following awards for her work: outstanding artist award (2015); Austrian Graphic Art Competition, prize awarded by the state of Burgenland (2005); the Bank Austria Creditanstalt’s Georg Eisler Prize (2004); Prize for Young European Painting, Premio di pittura / Award for Painting Golfo della Spezia, La Spezia (2002), Outstanding Artist Award, Bundeskanzleramt Österreich / Federal Chancellery of Austria (2015), Preis der Stadt Wien für bildende Kunst / Award for Fine Arts of the City of Vienna (2020).
Solo shows (selection): Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien, Graz (2017); Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna (2015, 2012, 2007, 2004); Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg (2011); Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich (2008); Vienna Secession, Vienna (2006); Kunstforum BA-CA, Vienna (2005); Studio d’Arte Cannaviello, Milan (2006, 2003, 2001).
Group shows (selection): Lulu, Mexico City (2018); KUMU—Eesti Kunstimuuseum, Tallinn (2017); Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2016); 21er Haus, Belvedere, Vienna (2015, 2013, 2012); Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (2014); Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck (2012); Kunstmuseum Thurgau, Kartause Ittingen, Warth (2007); 10th Cairo Biennial, Cairo (2006); Prague Biennale 2, Prague (2005); Fondazione Michetti, Francavilla al Mare (2000); Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, 20er Haus, Vienna (1996); Steirischer Herbst, Graz (1994).
