Human or Other was published in conjunction with Katrin Plavčak’s 2018 exhibition at the Secession in Vienna.

The volume documents a body of recent work in which the artist investigates notions of identity, alterity, and the unstable boundary between self and persona.

Plavčak’s paintings often depict figures and situations that resist simple classification: they gesture toward hybrid forms, imagined selves, and worlds in which conventional distinctions between human subjectivity and the “other” are unsettled. The title Human or Other reflects this central concern with ambiguity and transformation. Neither fully normative nor wholly alien, the figures in these works traverse a conceptual space in which identity becomes performative, fluid, and contingent.

The publication brings together full-page reproductions of key works, installation views, and contextual texts. Critical contributions frame Plavčak’s practice within broader discussions of contemporary figurative painting, performance in painting, and the negotiation of selfhood in visual culture. Rather than merely documenting an exhibition, the book situates the artist’s work within ongoing debates about identity, representation, and narrative construction in contemporary art.