Each Poison, A Pillow
Stefanie Moshammer
After a successful presentation at Parallel Vienna 2024, the Dr. Eva Kahan Foundation is delighted to continue its collaboration with artist Stefanie Moshammer with her current exhibition at the Kahan Art Space Vienna.
In her extensive series Each Poison, A Pillow, Moshammer explores the subject of female alcoholism, intertwining personal experiences — shaped by growing up with an alcoholic parent — with scientific and cultural perspectives. The title highlights the often-hidden dimension of women's drinking behavior: studies show that women's alcohol consumption has increased worldwide in recent years, in contrast to men, women often concealing their dependence and drink at home. For Moshammer, pillows symbolize the domestic environment — a space of comfort and secrecy. Like a pillow, alcohol offers an illusion of emotional solace, a moment of relaxation — yet the fine line between indulgence and poison remains perilously narrow.
The discovery of a letter (Original Letter, 1995), which Stefanie Moshammer found during the Covid pandemic and had written as an eight-year-old girl to the “Christkind”, marks the starting point of this ongoing artistic project, resulting in a close collaboration with the artist’s mother that allowed the visualization of diverse perspectives. Throughout the series, Moshammer’s mother is visible in various ways, both in recent photographs taken by the artist and in images from her parent’s personal photo archive in which, for instance, a large-format portrait shows her mother as a beautiful young woman (I love you, 2024). The visible lightness in this vacation snapshot represents, for Moshammer, the sense of freedom and ease that her mother experienced at that time. Opposite this image hangs a photograph of an apple (Nowadays, 2022). Within the context of the biblical story of the Fall of Man, the apple has been a symbol of guilt and shame since the Middle Ages. For the artist, this image points to her mother’s feelings of guilt related to her drinking habits, while also addressing the idea that some wounds cannot be healed. According to an interview between the artist and Zeit Magazin in 2023, Moshammer said: “The staging of the peel is a metaphor for reconstructing something ideal: it will never be as it was before, but one still tries to restore it”.
The image of a snakeskin (Stage Two, 2022) could also be associated with the expulsion from paradise, though for Moshammer it primarily signifies transformation and renewal. The transition from past to present holds something hopeful; shedding skin symbolizes different stages of recovery and new beginnings after rehabilitation. This hopeful tone is also present in the opposite image, End of Summer (2022), another portrait of her mother. Beside it hangs a large-format image of a wound (Softest Hard, 2018*)—a deep injury Moshammer sustained during a carefree night of partying. Here, Moshammer critically examines her own alcohol consumption: When does personal drinking become problematic? At what point does perception become distorted, and when does behavior cross the line into irrationality?
Throughout the series, Moshammer’s effort to understand and therefore see the world through the eyes of her mother remains central. The spatial installation To be you (video installation, apples, 2024) features both her mother’s eye and her own, capturing different emotional stages while maintaining eye contact. In another installation, Hide and Peak (glass, stainless steel, 2024), the artist visualizes the self-destructive nature of drinking; despite the visible danger of sharp nails, the temptation often outweighs it. Simultaneously, the work conveys the beauty of refined dining culture, where celebrations often feature not only good food but also sociable drinking.
The question “is my drinking normal?” appears on the textile work Instascrolling (2023), marking the entrance to another exhibition room. The three-channel video installation Mother's Milk and Other Spirits (2024, video work, 4:45 min), created specifically for this space, immerses visitors in a kaleidoscope of images and confronts them with the multifaceted presence of alcohol. The found footage videos and film excerpts selected by Moshammer explore cultural, scientific, and social dimensions of alcohol while incorporating an intimate, autobiographical layer with video fragments from her childhood filmed by her father. The installation space transforms into an overwhelming sensory environment that floods viewers with an excess of imagery. This deliberate overstimulation reflects the complex role of alcohol: alluring yet unsettling, deeply ingrained yet disruptive, its influence woven through collective memory and individual experience.
curated by Angela Zach-Buchmayer
opening hours: Saturday 1 – 5 pm and by appointment
address: entrance at Große Pfarrgasse 7, 1020 Vienna – das kraus
photos:
©Stefanie Moshammer - Nowadays, 2022, 118 x 88 cm, fine art inkjet print, wooden frame, museums glass, Ed. of 3
©Manuel Carreon Lopez