Nicole Prutsch

beyond the measuring principle

From the Cutting-Room Floors of Our Minds

The cut is the central element in Nicole Prutsch’s (b. Austria, 1980; lives and works in Boston and Vienna) work. The artist harnesses historic materials from the archives of anthropology, subjecting them to processes of fragmentation, defamiliarization, and automation as well as repetition. Analyzing anthropological researchers’ methods and the provenance of their visual sources, Prutsch undertakes a critical scrutiny of the standards and stratagems that sustain a scientific claim to objectivity. In photographs, videos, and installations that integrate the archival materials, Prutsch frames anachronistic margins of free play where natural science encounters philosophy and psychology, and raises probing questions concerning the genesis of knowledge and facticity.

The publication beyond the measuring principle was produced in conjunction with the exhibition of the same title at Neue Galerie Graz. With an essay by Andreas Spiegl and a conversation between the artist and Domen Ograjenšek.