18 Questions With...
Xenia Lesniewski

Aug 19, 2025
Interview image
Photo: Yvon Luca / Courtesy: Xenia Lesniewski
comment 1
Share this interview:

18 Questions With...
Xenia Lesniewski

Aug 19, 2025
comment 1
Share this interview:
Interview image
Photo: Yvon Luca / Courtesy: Xenia Lesniewski
"18 Questions With" is an interview series featuring the artists, curators, and gallerists driving art's next wave.

Xenia Lesniewski is a Vienna-based artist whose practice interrogates the entanglements of power, identity, and labor within social and institutional frameworks. Operating at the nexus of the personal and the political, her work examines how material objects and spatial configurations may disclose the underlying architectures of control.


Lesniewski develops environments that destabilize conventional typologies, turning a break room into the site of a group exhibition, a funeral home into a concept store, or a remote train station into a doomsday-themed bar. These transformations stage tensions between function and fiction, humor and critique. Informed by the visual strategies of advertising and pop culture, her installations expose the performative aspects of social roles, unsettling the legibility of everyday life.


At the core of her practice lies a conviction in art’s capacity to destabilize dominant narratives and to generate spaces of ambiguity or dissent. Her works compel viewers to reconsider quotidian environments not as neutral backdrops, but as active arenas where power is negotiated, identities are rehearsed, and the routines of daily life are staged and re-staged.

All views expressed are solely those of the interviewee and do not represent UntitledDb.
Do you have an idea for a question you'd like us to ask in a future interview? Suggest a question.

Never miss an interview notifications_active

Create a free UntitledDb account and stay in the loop. Get notified when new interviews drop, get early access to new features as we continue building out the site, and enjoy the perks of being part of our growing community.

Guestbook
All comments: 1
RWildes 3 months ago
What a Fresh Point of View, I Love learning about this new Artist. SUPER Inspiriring💫 GREAT Writing on Your Part Untitled Db, Great Questions🌅
2
report Report

Related Entries

View person
ARTIST, CURATOR
b. 1985, Germany
View person
ARTIST
b. 1940, Austria
View person
ARTIST
b. 1913, Canadad. 1980
View person
ARTIST
b. 1911, Franced. 2010
View person
ARTIST
b. 1965, United States
View person
ARTIST
b. 1939, United States
View person
ARTIST
b. 1945, United States
View person
ARTIST
b. 1960, Germanyd. 2010
View person
ARTIST
b. 1942, Netherlandsd. 1975
View person
COLLECTIVE
Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal and AA Bronson
View person
ARTIST
b. 1957, Cubad. 1996
View person
ARTIST
b. 1936, Germany
View artwork
ARTWORK
Xenia Lesniewski
View artwork
ARTWORK
Xenia Lesniewski
View artwork
ARTWORK
Xenia Lesniewski
View artwork
ARTWORK
Xenia Lesniewski
View artwork
ARTWORK
Xenia Lesniewski
View exhibition
EXHIBITION
Apr 27, 2024 — Sep 20, 2024
Traunkirchen OrtTraunkirchen, AT
View exhibition
EXHIBITION
Jul 12, 2025 — Sep 24, 2025
PapiermachermuseumLaakirchen, AT
View exhibition
EXHIBITION
Oct 28, 2021 — Jan 07, 2022
Bildraum 01Vienna, AT
View institution
EXHIBITION SPACE
Vienna, AT