eSeL REZEPTION is both workspace and showroom for the popular info hub and art calendar www.esel.at.

The team of eSeL keep up with all the openings and events of the Vienna art scene.
In addition to providing catalogues and information on all important exhibitions, eSeL uses its website, newsletter, social media and its space at MQ to offer photographic insight and inside tips on museums, cultural institutions, artist-run spaces and art communities in Vienna.

Since 2021, the continually growing #eSeLSCHWARM, a ‘decentralised editing team’, has been offering new and unusual community perspectives of the art world on social media. At the ‘eSeL Hochstallungen’, team eSeL contemplates the present and the future of free information streams (in a shared office with the data protection patrons of q/uintessenz).

At eSeL REZEPTION, a publicly accessible showroom, the ‘eSeL SHOP für brauchbare Kunst’ (eSeL shop for useful art) offers editions and affordable unique copies and explores how art can affect society – currently with ‘cultural products for the urban development of nature’. These are artists’ editions which can contribute to repairing our planet. Simultaneously, the ‘eSeL Galerie für Nutzungsrechte‘ (gallery of rights of use) exhibits ‘AnthropoSCHÖN?’, photographs about climate change having found its way into current Vienna exhibitions.

Interview with Lorenz „eSeL“ Seidler

Who/what are you?

An ‘aesthetic lifeform‘. If you say ‘artist‘ too fast, chances are there won’t be any money. ‘Communicator’ seems appropriate as well. And I am also considered a photographer by now.

What are your fields of activity?

As an art appreciator who likes to meddle, a roving (photo) reporter, an art communicator on the internet, and with my own art projects and exhibitions, I pretty much cover the entire spectrum of a ‘vita activa’ in the Vienna art scene. >;e)

How do you reach your goals?

With a sense of humour - and the internet. Furthermore: good planning that still allows space for experimenting and curiosity.

What challenges do you face?

Right now? Developing eSeL.at and the #eSeLSCHWARM technologically – toward active user empowerment. Besides, we have to finalise a catalogue describing 20 years of eSeL events. I am also preparing a few exhibitions of my photographs. They can all take place in 2022 almost at once, after corona.

What is important to you?

To fight for and maintain personal freedom. Observing artists helps. I want to actualise my own passion and curiosity in specific projects and structures – while keeping in mind that there is a society outside the art sector. After all, without an audience or an interface to the outside world, it would all be a waste of time.

How big is your team?

Growing exponentially! Antilope, DacHS and Wombat for the upcoming eSeL catalogue and various projects. Paloma, Waschbärhund, Hahn and NerzfrOsch for #eSeLSCHWARM, GaMs for the calendar, Biber for technology, and Ozelot for an additional photographic perspective. And there are more people collaborating on various projects.

Since when have you been at Q21?

It’s been almost ten years! Thanks to the redesign and expansion of the eSeL REZEPTION, we want our ‘Q21 show room’ to shine in new splendour come April. But even before that, we have been able to utilise interactions of our eSeL networks with an open hub in a ‘real space’. Now we need to press ahead online and wait until we can finally receive visitors again and celebrate in this ‘real space’.

A perfect work day starts with…

…looking forward to everything on the to-do list. But in light of current events, a great day also starts with getting people interested in contemporary art despite ‘social distancing’.

Events