Viktoria Binschtok

“Screen time and off-line time often switch back and forth in our everyday life. Our gaze jumps between information on the mobile device and in the environment in which we are physically, at that moment. I try to simulate this visual experience.”  Viktoria Binschtok

  • CONNECTION, Kunstverein Oldenburg, 2022

  • CONNECTION, Kunstverein Oldenburg, 2022

  • Not until tomorrow, 2020, Klemm’s, Berlin

  • Not until tomoroow, 2020, Klemm’s, Berlin

  • New Visions: Triennial of Photography and New Media, 2020, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo / Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen

  • New Visions: Triennial of Photography and New Media, 2020, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo / Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen

  • An Ort und Stelle. Fotografie des Gegenwärtigen, 2019, Kunstmuseum Reutlingen, Reutlingen

  • GoldenHorn/GoldenCase, 2017 Kunstmuseum Bonn, Foto: David Ertl

  • GoldenHorn/GoldenCase, 2017 Kunstmuseum Bonn, Foto: David Ertl

  • Pumps & Globes, 2017Museum Folkwang, Essen

  • Pumps & Globes, 2017, Museum Folkwang, Essen

  • Cutting Straws at Midnight, 2017, Klemm’s, Berlin

  • Marriage is a Lie/Fried Chicken, 2015, C/O Berlin

  • Marriage is a Lie/Fried Chicken, 2015, C/O Berlin

  • Secondhand, 2014, Pier24, San Francisco

  • World of Details, 2012, Klemm’s, Berlin

  • Making History / Ray – Photography, 2012, Frankfurter Kunstverein

  • Suspicious Minds, 2009, Klemm’s, Berlin

  • Making History / Ray – Photography, 2012, MMK Zollamt, Frankfurt a. Main.

  • Spektakel, 2008, Klemm’s, Berlin

About the artist

Viktoria Binschtok traces in her photographic work the idea of visibility. By deferring the context in interesting ways she raises questions about which contents are transported within clearly defined image borders and which ones – based on our common knowledge – surpass them.
Binschtok refers equally to images taken from media sources such as the Internet as well as images taken by herself in order to discuss their function and representation.

Her pivotal series of Clusters/NetworkedImages focuses on physical echoes of the image flow produced by our digitally connected world. In her photographic sculptures, the artist deals with the phenomenon of today’s image economy: the intangibility of image data, our ever-shortening attention span, and the simultaneous power and immediacy of consumed pictures. The artist links the momentary images to their staged reproductions in a photographic symbiosis.

Her works become part of the larger net that Binschtok consciously casts over divergent visualities— instead of tapping into a single genre or subject, she dissects the vastness of our daily digital image production, one piece at a time. The precise layering of her works generates visual connections with both subtle and apparent references to current realities — immaterial concepts thus take physical shape, compelling us to, once again, ruminate our algorithmic-driven present.

“What do images communicate without any indication of the source, location, or the motivation behind what has been captured in them? With ‘Clusters/Networked Images’, Viktoria Binschtok enters a terrain where conceptual ascription is no longer the decisive filter: here, a purely visual order has taken control of the images.” Florian Ebner, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2017

Publications

  • Viktoria Binschtok Connection

    Text: Jens Asthoff, Wolfgang Ullrich. Graphic design: mischen-berlin. Editor: Oldenburger Kunstverein. HatjeCantz Verlag, 2022
  • with/against the flow Zeitgenössische fotografische Interventionen #1

    Text: Florian Ebner, Interview: Christin Müller, Editor: Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen e.V. (ifa), Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2016
  • Marriage is a Lie/Fried Chicken

    Text: Charlotte Cotton, Matthias Harder, Joshua Chuang, Laurel Ptak, Editor: C/O Berlin, Kehrer Verlag, 2015
  • Cluster

    Editor: Kunstverein Göttingen, Design: Studio Jung, argobooks, 2015
  • World of Details

    Editor: Matthias Harder, Design: Timo Grimberg, arc-gestaltung.de, Distanz Verlag, 2013
  • Suspicious Minds

    Text: Dr. Mathias Harder, Walter Benn, Editor: Klemm’s, Michaels, 2009