Ashley Hans Scheirl & Jakob Lena Knebl
Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France
19 October 2023 – 7 January 2024
A year on from their exhibition at the Austrian Pavillion at the 59th Biennale di Venezia, Ashley Hans Scheirl and Jakob Lena Knebl were invited to present a major exhibition at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Taking over the entire lower level of the museum, the exhibition explored subjects that play an important role in the artists' work: body, identity and transformation, with a special focus on trans-identity, -material, and -context. Working with a diverse range of media that includes painting, sculpture, architecture and fashion, the artists create environments that they describe as "spaces of desire," encouraging viewers to leave behind their daily reality and immerse themselves in the now and the new. The exhibition brought together existing and new works made specifically for the spaces in Paris. Scheirl produced a new series of paintings, while Knebl has chosen to experiment with new materials to create a family of outfits and sculptures.
Ashley Hans Scheirl (born 1956 in Salzburg, Austria) is an artist and filmmaker whose work explores themes of gender and queer identity. The practice of Jakob Lena Knebl (born 1970 in Baden, Austria) encompasses performance, installation, film and photography. Both work on individual projects, alongside their frequent collaborations.
Phileas has supported two projects by Scheirl and Knebl in recent years: their participation at the 15th Biennale de Lyon in 2019 and their exhibition at the Austrian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennial in 2022 (an exhibition presented concurrently at the Phileas exhibition space in Vienna).
