Josef Dabernig
15th Baltic Triennial, Vilnius
6 September 2024 – 12 January 2025
The Baltic Triennial is among the most important exhibitions of contemporary art in northern Europe. Founded in 1979 when Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union, it initially featured mostly young artists from the Baltic republics. In recent years it has adopted a more expanded brief, bringing local artists into dialogue with their international peers.
The 15th edition of the Triennial in 2024 is co-producing the artist Josef Dabernig's new film work entitled Lacrimosa. "Funeral ceremonies in the attic of a spooky villa. The elderly aunt gathers her great-grandnieces around a child's coffin to pray." The film follows the artist's aunt, the organist and music teacher Anni, as she performs an unusual ritual with her grandchildren, which turns out to be a farewell ritual: Anni died five days after filming was completed. While the work stages a curious tragedy in Anni's villa on the visual level, a text story by the author Bruno Pellandini parallels his parents' house in Ticino as a subtle contrasting story on the audio level.
Josef Dabernig (born 1956 in Kötschach-Mauthen, Carinthia) is an artist and filmmaker. Initially trained as a sculptor, he has been producing short films since the mid-1990s that explore the hidden magic of everyday life. His works have been shown at manifesta 3 (Ljubljana), the 49th and 50th Biennale di Venezia (2001 and 2003), the 9th Gwangju Biennale (2012) and manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg (2014). Dabernig's films have been programmed at renowned film festivals such as Locarno, Mar del Plata, Oberhausen, Rotterdam, Toronto and Venice.
This is the artist's first collaboration with Phileas.
