A recurring theme in the photographic work of object and media artist Herwig Kempinger is his continuous examination of the mediality of photography, its (supposedly) mimetic reflex becoming the core of his artistic reflections.
His most recent works are characterized by a departure from the explicit problematization of photographic mimesis in favour of photographic formation. The moments of »time – space – sculpture« take center stage. Herwig Kempinger relates the photographic transportability of time and space (R. Barthes) to the sculptural, thus demonstrating its dissolution and the beginning of a post-sculptural time. In a playful manner, he stages figurative scenes, self-sufficient and (seemingly) timeless, which are further distorted by ironizing titles, thus attempting to evade any metaphysical interpretation. Art does not reproduce the visible, but makes visible, P. Klee once said: this seems to be a guiding principle of Herwig Kempinger; to show what can become visible exclusively in the moment of the photographic.
from: Carl Aigner, FOTOHOF Info, issue 3+4/1987