HEIMO ZOBERNIG, limited olive oil edition, 2011.

HEIMO ZOBERNIG, limited olive oil edition, 2011.

Heimo Zobernig (b. 1958) has gone back to the basics with an appreciation of the metal agricultural container, and its sleek inherent form, supplemented by a label in Zobernig's characteristic Helvetica typeface. This reductionist interest in the function and context of the work, as well as its design and communication aspects, mark Zobernig as one of the most significant artists today.

Austrian artist Heimo Zobernig has worked with Cornelia often in the past decades. A first project was his artwork to accompany an article by Cornelia for the journal Durch, in which the artist created a cover image collaging together the maps of many cities. Zobernig had been exhibited by Peter Pakesch in his gallery, and at the Basel Art Fair, where Cornelia met him, through Joseph Kosuth, who was an artist in the gallery of Pakesch. Cornelia remembers distinctly the sculptures he exhibited. They were small gray toilet paper rolls, kinetically arranged, on a pedestal. Her curiosity about the dry wit of the artist awakened, she embraced the opportunity to work with Zobernig, organizing a one-person exhibition of his work for Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, in 1999; a retrospective in Modena, in 2008; inclusion in exhibitions about certificates of identity, and books by artists, and a book publication about the subject of pornography, edited in France. Cornelia acquired a library sculpture from Zobernig, via Artelier, Graz, in which Kosuth designed the shelves, and a painting-furniture piece constitutes her personal office desk, in addition to other objects with which she happily resides. The Assessore della Cultura di Siena, Omar Calabrese, famously rested his briefcase on the work Zobernig had created for the exhibition Cornelia had curated, asking where the show was to be found.