During a visit to her father’s home in Scunthorpe, England, Miriam Stoney created a brick sculpture shaped as a corner for an exhibition in Paris. Its dimensions are based on the length between the artist’s elbow and her middle finger. The bricks she used did not fit this physical measurement and so had to be adapted and cut with an angle grinder. A scrap from this process, which she calls My First Flex, is Stoney’s annual gift to the GAK.
Stoney’s artistic practice closely intertwines language, material, and action. As an effect, ambiguities and superimpositions repeatedly arise that refer to each other semantically. This is also the case in her annual edition, where “flexing” describes the use of the tool and, in broader linguistic usage, marks a pose of exaggerated self-assertion. At the same time, small imperfections on the brick surface carry trace of the work’s process. The translation from colloquial language into action tests the relationships between body and tool, concept and material production; in a play of ambiguous equivalences and overlaps, Stoney raises questions about the imposition and relations of meaning, in a manner that is both humorous and quite serious.
The act of measurement is also reminiscent of Stoney’s contribution to the exhibition You Breathe Differently Under the Weight. Debt and Credit at the GAK in 2025, in which she presented a series of modified household scales. The work Council of Scales suggests that the measure of weight and so of bricks cannot be reconciled with that of bodies. It is just as much a false friend as words, which can be similar but mean different things.
Miriam Stoney (*1994, lives in Vienna) is an author, artist, and translator. Her artistic practice is mostly collaborative and text-based, but also encompasses performance, audio, and installation. She has participated in numerous international exhibitions and performance programs, including at Salzburger Kunstverein; Kunstverein in Hamburg (2024); Kunstverein München; Kyiv Biennial 2023, Vienna (2023); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Bergen Assembly (2022); Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2021).
Jahresgabe 2025
Miriam Stoney
My First Flex
2025
Brick off-cut
22,2 x 2,8 x 2,2 cm
unique piece
280,- inkl. 7% VAT