Karl Karner (b.1973 in Feldbach, Austria) lives and works in Feldbach, Austria. Karner studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna under Professor Heimo Zobernig.
Karner positions his work between the disciplines of visual arts, performance and dance theatre. Within his practice, Karner continuously discusses bodily perception and the concept of corporeality itself. These are not only related to the human body, but can yet be understood as a wide discussion of object, materiality and space. In the artist´s installations and art environments, viewers frequently become players. Such participative impulses accentuate the irony inherent in these artworks.
The repetition of recurring motifs references the serial production of industrial objects. In Karner‘s work, these motifs are hand-made pieces of cast iron that become part of the artistic process. His preferred motifs are beaked creatures and dogs or hares, often clad with bronze or gold. It would almost seem that these inanimate fantastic creatures are brought to life by the protagonists. With their interactive potential, the environments created by Karner generate various forms of display that are composed similar to arrangements of theatre props and are complemented by a series of performative gestures.