In summer 2016 Leonid Keller was invited to work and exhibit at a former sawmill in the small village of Neukirchen in Austria. Now a silent witness of generations of lumber production (1830-1970), with massive wooden beams and old machines, Leonid Keller set up a temporary studio at the sawmill and developed their works over a two months working period. The results were presented in a final exhibition in August 2016.

#shapeofalake, 2016
varnished steel
2064 x 86 x 2mm
adhesive foil on postcard (15 x)



Gebt uns Gedankenfreiheit, 2016
11 collages
folded book cover



On Solitude, 2016
three-part graphite drawing
210 x 70 cm
dictionairy page




04.08.16. 06:30, 2016
digital photoprint, 10 x 15 cm
gravure, 70 x 100 cm
stone, carved



About the works:

#shapeofalake plays with our perception of color gradients, as they appear in landscape, and puts them in context with popular instagram filters and hashtagging of landscape photography. The installation is composed of a series of sixteen b&w postcards and a steel object. Digitally created gradients are applied to significant organic shapes in these historic postcards. The object, which is inspired by a lake, corresponds in it‘s shape. It is varnished with flip-flop laquer from the car industry. Depending on the viewing angle, it‘s color shifts.


The complex collages Gebt uns Gedankenfreiheit (give us freedom of thought) alter the content of a book on Austrias glorified craftmanship (published in 1952). Poetic spreads of imagery and text give the book a new, provocative meaning.

On Solitude is a graphite drawing of a fictional mountain range, presented as a triptych. It is dsplayed with a page from a Latin to German dictionary, which joins the words "Gebet" (prayer) and "Gebirge" (mountains). On Soitude questions the influence of geographical surroundings on the appreciation of spirituality.

A piece of stone from the mountain Traunstein, carved a then engraved in hand-made paper, and a screenshot from the mountain's webcam. The image was photographed in the morning of the exhibition and gives the installation it's title: 14.08.16 06:30. The installation refelcts on the mountain's mark, inspired by the frequent cases of death related to it, caused either by sudden fall or suicide. During the artist's stay at the foot of the mountain, the webcam captured a suicidal person shortly before his deadly fall into the canyon. After its discovery, the image was deleted from the webcams archive.