In her work, Marianne Vlaschits explores the dissolution of seemingly fixed boundaries between the human and natural worlds through painting and installation. She interweaves celestial objects with bodily orifices and scientific illustrations with intimate everyday experiences. Her surreal compositions create strange worlds on the edge of abstraction. She draws her inspiration from astrophysical research, feminist science fiction literature and art history. Vlaschits studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and her work has been exhibited internationally, including in Los Angeles, New York and Basel. She lives and works in Vienna.

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The Sauschal was designed as part of an exhibition about breasts (‘Darker Lighter Puffy Flat’ at Kunsthalle Wien, 2023) and is now in its 3rd edition. For the Memphis Editions 2024, the scarf is available for the first time in a new colour variant; perfectly suited to the cold season, the ‘Frozen Nipple Edition’, packaged in a high-quality cardboard box with pig's nostrils painted on the lid. The six breasts adorning each side of the scarf symbolise the female potency of pigs, which can have up to 18 teats. They refer to the ancient Egyptian goddess Nut, who was often depicted as a sow with piglets; she embodies nourishing and life-giving powers, as she, the mother of the heavenly bodies, swallowed them every evening and gave birth again every morning. This cyclical renewal is also reflected in the infinity symbol, the horizontal 8, in the centre of the scarf.

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Marianne Vlaschits