Lisl Ponger: Semiotic Ghosts
Book Presentation and Film Program
December 4, 2025
Lisl Ponger is one of the distinctive voices of Austrian contemporary art. She makes work that skilfully and persistently shifts the borders of photography and film. At the present time, when images can no longer be trusted, Ponger's work points to the processual activity under the surface: to the ideologies, institutions and associated habits of seeing. Her gaze is analytic, though never distanced and it allows representational contradictions to become visible. In the process she never shies away from the role of the author to critically interrogate scientific, aesthetic and social representation. Her works inhabit the field of tension between images made by herself and others which engage with identity, history and gender dynamics, areas in which photos, installations and films become partners in a dialogue where questions are asked but answers are not provided. (Elisabeth Streit / Translation: Tim Sharp)
Lisl Ponger. Semiotische Geister / Semiotic Ghosts, Elisabeth Streit and Dietmar Schwärzler (eds.), Vienna: Mandelbaum Edition Zyphius 2025
With Lisl Ponger, Elisabeth Streit, and Dietmar Schwärzler in attendance
Lisl Ponger is one of the distinctive voices of Austrian contemporary art. She makes work that skilfully and persistently shifts the borders of photography and film. At the present time, when images can no longer be trusted, Ponger's work points to the processual activity under the surface: to the ideologies, institutions and associated habits of seeing. Her gaze is analytic, though never distanced and it allows representational contradictions to become visible. In the process she never shies away from the role of the author to critically interrogate scientific, aesthetic and social representation. Her works inhabit the field of tension between images made by herself and others which engage with identity, history and gender dynamics, areas in which photos, installations and films become partners in a dialogue where questions are asked but answers are not provided. (Elisabeth Streit / Translation: Tim Sharp)
Lisl Ponger. Semiotische Geister / Semiotic Ghosts, Elisabeth Streit and Dietmar Schwärzler (eds.), Vienna: Mandelbaum Edition Zyphius 2025
With Lisl Ponger, Elisabeth Streit, and Dietmar Schwärzler in attendance
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