Fluss Frauen Farben, 2021

Elements :

Series of analogue b&w and colour photographs
Site specific solo exhibition in Drosendorf, AT
Artist book with text contributions by Anna Soucek, Mella Waldstein und Vesna

Project was kindly suported by: Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur, öffentlicher Raum und Sport, Vienna & Land Niederösterreich

 

An autobiographic photographic research project centered around the river Thaya, different women connected to it and the colours of a little town in the Northern Waldviertel in Austria, called Drosendorf.

Thaya vor Drosendorf, 2020

Weissbad Drosendorf, 2020

Text by Anna Soucek:
"It was really only a question of time, of the right time, I thought, when Ines Lechleitner told me last summer that she had started working artistically in and with Drosendorf. She didn't yet know exactly what would come out of it. Ines has been my friend for many years. She lives in Berlin, I live in Vienna. The place where we have met most often and had the most intensive encounters with each other is Drosendorf in the Waldviertel. While I have a loose but heartfelt relationship with this magical little town on the Thaya, Ines is really rooted here. She has spent her summer holidays in Drosendorf with her family since she was a child. As is her way, she has made friends and got to know the place as intimately as only locals know it, i.e. people who live here when the summer holidaymakers have left. When there is no more holiday feeling. Together with her sister Florentine, who lives in Switzerland, Ines has renovated a charming old cottage on the main square and made it habitable for her two families and guests."

Frau Liesi, Gasthof Failer, 2020

Strandbad Drosendorf, 2020

Brigitte beim Schloss, 2020

"As with many artists, Ines Lechleitner has no clearly defined boundaries between work and leisure, between holidays and projects. And so I was not surprised that the time has come: that the annual holidays in Drosendorf, including children and dogs, commuting between the river pool, tennis court and ice-cream parlour, should result in a long-term artistic project. It all began when Ines went out with her medium-format camera to photograph special places by the river, to take portraits of special women and to capture special moments, such as the tension-filled performance in the circus tent or the curious gaze of a duckling in a human hand nest. Ines takes her photographs with careful consideration. She doesn't impose or stage for the camera; she prefers to listen and wait to catch the right moment. I know this because she also took my portrait. She explained that women usually don't have appealing portraits of themselves. If they ever need one, for a job application for example, they are embarrassed to have to take one themselves quickly and unprofessionally. That's true, I've been there. Thanks to the photo session at the town wall in Drosendorf last summer, there is finally a photo of me that I find more than presentable."

Zirkus Drosendorf, 2020

"There are at least three motifs in Ines Lechleitner's artistic work that can be linked to Drosendorf if one wishes to emphasise the significance of the small Waldviertel town in her artistic oeuvre. Firstly, there is the river; the Thaya is known to create identity for the entire region and its local communities. With her project "Imagine Two Rivers", Ines has brought two unknown rivers - the Elbe in Central Europe and the Yamuna in India - into a sensory dialogue. The multi-part project has resulted in photographs, drawings, sculptures, performances, artist publications and even a fragrance bottled in perfume bottles. The other is cooking. Ines has organised experimental culinary film screenings and a sound food performance. Cooking as an art form. She learnt her craft from a national authority, namely Elisabeth di Giorgio, née Failler, in the legendary kitchen of the "Zum Goldenen Lamm" inn on Drosendorf's main square. Mrs Liesi's apricot dumplings are famous. Ines Lechleitner made apricots the subject of an entire artistic project, which began with a poem entitled "L'abricot" and ended with the preparation of the dumplings. nd thirdly, there is the topic of colours. In a synaesthetic installation and live performance with workshop participants, Ines worked with a perfumer to translate colours into smells. "Colour Correspondence" is the name of this experimental, artistic format. Ines has also taken up the motif of colours for this artist's book by placing colour tones of buildings in Drosendorf as monochromatic surfaces next to the photographs and interpreting the facades of the graphically exciting main square as a colour palette. Drosendorf in Ines Lechleitner's artistic work - so this has a certain history. Nevertheless, the artist describes this year's exhibition in several locations, as well as this publication, as a "collection of beginnings". She will weave and braid these beginnings - like threads - and untie the knots that have formed. Long may the threads continue to be spun!"