Exhibitions

The permanent exhibition at the Architekturzentrum Wien provides insights into the most extensive and comprehensive collection on Austrian architecture of the 20th and 21st centuries. At the centre is the investigation of key exponents, including well-known and less well-known objects. Seven Hot Questions bring Cold Storage to life.

The Architekturzentrum Wien is the only museum in Austria devoted exclusively to architecture. As the Az W Collection has expanded over the last 17 years and consists of over 100 architects’ archives as well as extensive collections of individual projects, a large number of objects are being shown for the first time in the Permanent Exhibition: ‘Hot Questions — Cold Storage’. Selected models, drawings, furniture, fabrics, documents and films develop new threads in seven thematic episodes. Each episode is preceded by one of today’s burning issues, a Hot Question that brings Cold Storage to life.

The nation’s building activity with all of its cultural, social, economic and technical ramifications is made strikingly visible. The contents covered range from the special significance of Red Vienna to architectural pedagogical experiments in the wake of the 1968 movement or architectural revolts in Vorarlberg, to historical and current examples of environmental rethinking. The exhibition also engages with the ideological instrumentalisation of architecture and spatial planning and the active collaboration of architects in authoritarian systems, as well as their resistance. At the same time, the exhibition challenges deficits in the canon of Austrian architectural history, for instance from a perspective of gender equality. New players are featured, light is shed on previously little known sources and the key focus is on multiple perspectives instead of on a national historical narrative. This diversity is also reflected in the exhibition design. The sheer variety of the exponents and their display makes a visit to the exhibition a sensual and an atmospheric experience.

Concept: Angelika Fitz, Monika Platzer
Curator: Monika Platzer
Curatorial Assistance: Sonja Pisarik, Iris Ranzinger, Katrin Stingl
Production: Andreas Kurz
Finances und conversion: Karin Lux
Assistance: Barbara Kapsammer
Exhibition design: tracing spaces / Michael Hieslmair, Michael Zinganel ; seite zwei / Christoph Schörkhuber, Stefanie Wurnitsch

Adolf Krischanitz, Otto Steidle, Herzog & de Meuron: Wohnsiedlung Pilotengasse, Wien 22, 1987–1992, Modell Gesamtanlage Bauteil Krischanitz

Living together with camels and their close relatives shapes cultures. It is a source of livelihood for people around the world and part of their cultural identity. In a special exhibition scheduled to begin in 2024, the Weltmuseum Wien will explore the many aspects of life with dromedaries, Bactrian camels, llamas, and alpacas and will examine the effect that these animals, broadly called camelids, have had on the societies of which they are part.

Featuring films, photographs, artworks, and artefacts from the collections of the Weltmuseum Wien, several of which will be on public view for the first time, and with numerous loans from other institutions, the exhibition in six galleries narrates encounters with camelids past, present, and future.

The exhibition’s thematic arc extends from the first camels, which evolved in North America, how they were domesticated, spread across the world, and are kept today as universal livestock that have contributed to human survival.

The opportunities afforded by the extensive use of products derived from camelids establish a bridge to the present and also point to the future: to address climate change, camelids have emerged as a bearer of hope in medicine, nutrition, and the textile industry.

The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2024 to be the International Year of the Camelid. The Weltmuseum Wien presents the exhibition On the Backs of Camels as part of Austria’s international commitment to the above initiatives.

Super Taus Super Taus and a Camel Yasha 2017 © Photography: Imam Guseinov

Manoel Martins Neto Preparation for body painting (detail) 2018 © Museu de Arte Indígena, Curitiba

On the occasion of its reopening, mumok has invited the artist Jongsuk Yoon to conceive a new mural for the museum lobby. After photo-based installations by Cindy Sherman, Louise Lawler, and Jeff Wall, the most recent artist to create a mural was Siegfried Zaworka, who in his work dealt with the illusionist potentials of painting. Jongsuk Yoon now responds to the challenge of the monumental format with levitating, wholly anti-monumental and anti-heroic landscape pictures. Reduced means and the processuality of painting govern Yoon’s artistic practice, which she has developed in critical reflection of the paradigms of Western Modernism and East Asian traditions—particularly Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and Korean sansuhwa (Mountain and Water Paintings). Diaphanous layers of large-scale color patches, processual traces, and graphic ciphers condense to form panoramic “soul landscapes” (J. Yoon), in which “inner” and “outer” perspectives oscillate. 

Kumgangsan is the painterly convergence on a mountain region that Yoon herself has never set foot on: Since 1945, it has been the arbitrary dividing line and visible border between North and South Korea and, as such, is a symbol of an unresolved geopolitical conflict and its still traumatizing aftermath.

Jongsuk Yoon vor dem Wandbild Sun and Moon, Foto: Kalle Sanner © Nordiska Akvarellmuseet Courtesy the artist and Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Wien

The exhibition Mapping the 60s is based on the thought that substantial sociopolitical movements of the twenty-first century have their roots in the 1960s. Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, for example, have built on the anti-racist and feminist upheavals of yesteryear—as have current debates on war, mass media and mechanization, consumerism, and capitalism.
The developments of the 1960s in general and the events around 1968 in particular are not only paradigmatic in social and political terms, but also essential with regard to cultural policies. In 1962, the Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts was founded in Vienna, a precursor of mumok, whose collection focuses on Pop Art, Nouveau Réalisme, Fluxus, Viennese Actionism, performance art, Conceptual Art, and Minimal Art—artistic movements of the 1960s. Even when we ask ourselves how to address art history today and make it productive, we encounter discussions that go back to that decade.

Curated by Manuela Ammer, Marianne Dobner, Heike Eipeldauer, Naoko Kaltschmidt, Matthias Michalka, Franz Thalmair

Artists: Arman, Siah Armajani, Richard Artschwager, Evelyne Axell, Jo Baer, John Baldessari, Iain Baxter, Marlène Belilos / André Gazut, Joseph Beuys, Peter Blake, Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti, George Brecht, Peter Brüning, Jack Burnham, Michael Buthe, James Lee Byars, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Christo, Chryssa, Jef Cornelis, Robert Cumming, François Dallegret, Hanne Darboven, Walter De Maria, Jan Dibbets, Öyvind Fahlström, Mathilde Flögl, Sam Francis, Karl Gerstner, Alviani Getulio, John Giorno, Domenico Gnoli, Roland Goeschl, Robert Grosvenor, Hans Haacke, Raymond Hains, Sine Hansen, David Hockney, Michael Heizer, Richard Hamilton, Duane Hanson, Jann Haworth, Dick Higgins, Davi Det Hompson, Robert Huot, Robert Indiana, Alain Jacquet, Olga Jančić, Tess Jaray, Alfred Jensen, Jasper Johns, Asger Jorn, Allan Kaprow, Ellsworth Kelly, Corita Kent, Edward Kienholz, Konrad Klapheck, Kiki Kogelnik, Joseph Kosuth, Gary Kuehn, John Lennon, Les Levine, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Long, Lee Lozano, Mario Merz, Robert Morris, Ronald Nameth, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Jules Olitski, Yoko Ono, Dennis Oppenheim, Panamarenko, Pino Pascali, Walter Pichler, Larry Poons, Mel Ramos, Germaine Richier, Bridget Riley, Jean-Paul Riopelle, James Rosenquist, Teresa Rudowicz, Carolee Schneemann, Karl Schwanzer, George Segal, Richard Serra, Miriam Shapiro, Robert Smithson, K.R.H. Sonderborg, Keith Sonnier, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Paul Thek, Walasse Ting, Günther Uecker, Bram van Velde, Stan Vanderbeek, Frank Lincoln Viner, Franz Erhard Walther, Franz Erhard Walther / Arno Uth, Bernar Venet, Wolf Vostell, Andy Warhol, William Wegman, Lawrence Weiner, Tom Wesselmann, William T. Wiley

Sine Hansen On Top, 1967 130 cm x 120 cm x 2.8 cm Egg tempera on canvas mumok - Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, On loan from the Austrian Ludwig Foundation, since 2021 © Nora Meyer

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!

Kunsthalle Wien announces a new annual public art commission for its Museumsquartier building. Nora Turato (b. 1991, Zagreb) will inaugurate the Kunsthalle’s ‘Vitrine’ series with a new 62-metre mural which will remain on view for a year. The work will extend around the south-west wall of the building and be visible to passers-by as they traverse the outer arc of the Museumsquartier.

Turato’s work employs language as its primary material, playfully addressing the power structures at work in its spoken and written forms. Drawing upon a myriad of textual and typographic sources, she appropriates words and phrases, quoting advertising, mass media, SMS and email conversations in paintings on enamel panels and directly on walls. Fragments of text are also collaged to compose longer text-based works published as books or employed as scripts for videos and spoken word performances. T

urato’s new work, will use the length of the Kunsthalle’s Museumsquartier building to illustrate a scream. The artist’s typeface and its controlled application in this meticulously constructed wall painting is set in direct contrast to the text which mimics one of the most primal and uninhibited forms of expression. Unlike the so-called ‘primal scream’, ‘Aaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!’ refers not to a single, personal trauma but rather to the ‘ongoing incessant news cycle and state of the world with which we are all confronted and where this scream is the only reasonable form of not just release, but expression.’

Biography

Nora Turato (b. 1991, Zagreb) has held solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2022); Secession, Vienna (2021); Centre Pompidou, Paris; The International Centre of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana (both 2020); Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (2019) and Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein (2019). Her work has also been presented within significant international surveys including the Performa Biennial 2023; New York; PostCapital: Art and the Economics of the Digital Age at MUDAM Luxembourg and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2021 and 2022 respectively); INFORMATION (Today), Kunsthalle Basel and Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (2021 and 2022 respectively); Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art (2022) and the Belgrade Biennale (2021). Turato lives and works in Amsterdam.

Nora Turato, Installation, Kunsthalle Wien, ab 05.09.2024

Aleksandra Domanović’s expansive practice focuses on the intersections of technology, history and culture. Working across sculpture, video, print, photography and digital media, she considers how they shape our understanding of identity and contemporary society. This exhibition brings together different bodies of work made over a period of eighteen years, beginning with an early video that she produced while studying at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. It surveys the development of a playful yet critical oeuvre produced across two decades and shaped by information culture and mass media in the postinternet era. The exhibition includes a series of new and updated works that were specially commissioned for this exhibition. It is the first exhibition of Domanović’s work in Austria and the largest presentation of her work to date.

The exhibition is accompanied by the first monographic publication on Aleksandra Domanović’s work. The book includes an extensive interview between the artist and Michelle Cotton, Artistic Director of Kunsthalle Wien alongside essays by curator Carson Chan, the curator and writer Caitlin Jones, the editor and writer Pablo Larios and the critic and essayist Marcel Štefančič. Published in English and German it will be available from Kunsthalle Wien from October.

Aleksandra Domanović, Ausstellung, Kunsthalle Wien, 05.09.2024–26.01.2025, Ausstellungsansicht: Aleksandra Domanović, Things to Come, 2014, Kunsthalle Wien, 2024, Courtesy die Künstlerin / the artist und / and Tanya Leighton, Berlin und / and Los Angeles, Bubanj Fist Relief, 2012, Courtesy Corporate Collection Switzerland, Kunsthalle Wien, 2024, Foto / Photo: Iris Ranzinger

Whimsical worlds, fantastic creatures, kinetic sculptures: Anne Duk Hee Jordan unfolds a multisensory parcours on the third and fourth floors of KunstHausWien, a museum of Wien Holding, making the unknown and invisible in nature visible. Starting from primordial times, when the first life emerged, the scenery transforms into a magically fluorescent underwater world full of wondrous creatures and diverse phytoplankton. With this exhibition, specially developed for these spaces, the museum – which focuses on the connection between art and ecology – underscores the breadth and depth of this exploration.

“With her immersive, multisensory approach, Anne Duk Hee Jordan offers a new perspective on complex biological interrelationships. The universe created by Duk Hee at KunstHausWien shifts the focus of ecological considerations from humans to the entire ecosystem of our planet, which urgently needs to be protected and preserved. This creates an inspiring bridge from the romanticism of Friedensreich Hundertwasser to contemporary engagement with climate issues,” says Gerlinde Riedl, Director of KunstHausWien.

Anne Duk Hee Jordan designs an artistic universe at KunstHausWien. Here, marine life and oxygen atmosphere meet robotics and symbiosis; in multimedia works, set above and below water, nature is never just a “feel-good oasis,” but a dynamic ecosystem characterized by transience, utilization, fluid sexual identity, and renewal.

The title of Anne Duk Hee Jordan’s first institutional solo exhibition in Austria, The End Is Where We Start From, is taken from the poem Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot.

Anne Duk Hee Jordan, So long and thank you for all the fish, 2023 Courtesy the artist & alexander levy, Berlin © Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Foto: glimworkers

In the exhibit MEDIEN–VER–GLEICH, the artist Erik Swars (*1988) shows new works in diverse techniques.

Swars’ video work NTY (2Turner) depicts a sunset which illuminates an urban environment, framed by two skyscrapers, in spectrums of red and orange tones.

Stealthily, disenchantment creeps in, when the sun disappears and everything surrenders to a cool grey, the harbinger of the night. Only now, at the moment when the irretrievable experience is over, is one conscious of the beauty that arose from the impermanence of the moment. This sorrowful recognition is paired with the retrospective recollection of the natural spectacle and its imaginary reproduction in our thoughts and memories. Incidental noises such as the igniting of a lighter or techno music in the background open up associations to the context of the environment and allow individual narratives to emerge.

At the same time, the glowing red sky elicits an ambivalent game of sensations: Swars refers here, already in the title, to the British Romantic painter William Turner (1775–1851). His gleaming and radiant landscape paintings were created in the period after the dust from the volcanic eruption of Tambora in 1815 led to an intensification of red skies in the morning and evening. The violent discharge of a natural force caused an enhancement of the aesthetic and, completely in keeping with the Romantic movement, led to a subordination of the human individual in contrast to nature. It is also reminiscent of contemporary images: in this manner, pictures of wildfires, whose proportions are driven by climate change, contain ambivalent perceptions in themselves. From a purely aesthetic perspective, they are often reminiscent of sunsets and are formally powerful; in actuality, however, they are destructive and cost many living creatures their existence.

In Ohne Titel (last forever 1–3), Swars records shadows of plants on the image surface in differing intensity; sometimes hinted at as only a diffuse noise, sometimes as clear silhouettes of individual stems which spread out from a starting point and occasionally bend down from the burden of their own weight. In this manner the pictures function in a series like developing photographs, whose final pictorial development is not yet complete. The colouring and the reduced pictorial language open up associations with ancient pictures which, in cave paintings, exploited the principle of the contour in order, for example, to represent one’s own existence in the form of a hand. On the other hand, the pictures attain a forbidding, threatening effect due to the rustling and the seemingly toxic yellow. The pictures are therefore reminiscent of radiation catastrophes, by which the high level of radiation causes a noise in the images. In this context the pictures function like an attempt to conserve nature and to offer protection against the imminent global crisis.

Swars consistently transgresses the boundaries between photography, painting, and object. He therefore shows a portrait of the American singer Taylor Swift (*1989). She looks out of the picture in monochrome colours. It seems as if a power hidden behind the picture would push against the picture’s surface. The contours and the topography of the face appear to be pressed flat, and flatten out more and more into even, abstract surfaces. It remains a sensual yet at the same time disturbing portrait, bestowing a certain anonymity and autonomy to one of the figureheads of contemporary pop culture. Simultaneously, the homogeneous surfaces and the uniform proportions of the face are reminiscent of digital avatars which, on the one hand, can be used as parallel identities in the digital world and, on the other hand, after the most recent advances in artificial intelligence, serve as a personalisation of algorithms.

In Ohne Titel (Ponte San Moisé) Swars depicts a scene in Venice: people cross a bridge in both directions. A seemingly anonymous mass moves likes points in a system of coordinates, whose current position is clear and which disappears in the next moment. Connoisseurs of the art scene recognise, in the figure telephoning on the last step of the staircase, the influential curator Hans Ulrich Obrist (*1968). Swars plays with codes which purport a possible interpretation to those in the know: the significance of individual actors in the international art scene, who due to their decisions determine the canon of contemporary art. Without this context, the picture functions as a portrait of a city, one which is characterised by a rich history and which today has to struggle with ecological crises and mass tourism.

Swars’ works challenge the viewer to recalibrate strategies of perception and seeing, for the omnipresent images of our contemporary world. Also, in this way he always establishes connections between painting and photography, whose boundaries he constantly plumbs anew and observes from a variety of perspectives, so that changeable trajectories of reception can arise.

(Text: Leo Wedepohl, 2024, Translation: Sarah Cormack)

ERWIN WURM

A RETROSPECTIVE ON HIS 70TH BIRTHDAY

Erwin Wurm (b. 1954 Bruck/Mur) is one of today’s most successful and best-known international contemporary artists. For his 70th birthday, this presentation unfolds a firstever comprehensive survey of key works and important stations of his multifaceted oeuvre. Its arc extends from his beginnings in the 1980s to works shown here for the first time or created especially for the occasion. Sculptures, drawings and instructions, videos and photographs invite contemplating the paradoxes and absurdities of our world. In his artistic method, Erwin Wurm examines the concept of the sculptural, introducing it as a measure by which to gauge our contemporary world.

The boundaries between traditional concepts of sculpture, performance, photography or painting are called into question, just as the statics and movement within a work of art are redefined. Wurm overturns habitual perceptions of the reality that surrounds us and, with his artworks, opens up opportunities to raise new perspectives and questions: What happens if I disregard gravity, what if houses start melting away or are squashed by performative interventions? How do bodies and spaces behave when the absurd and paradoxical has room to exist in them? How can you, in the One Minute Sculptures, become part of a work of art for a brief moment, and how does that feel? As the artist himself explains, it is always about the concept of the sculptural in relation to the social. For example, a pickle may well be declared to be a self-portrait, or a lavish luxury convertible like the Fat Car as a symbol of greed, excess, and commodity fetishism in our society. On the other hand, the Narrow House conceptually reflects the narrowness of bourgeois thinking and action and the restrictiveness of social norms, whether through religion, convention, or faux pathos. Relating to this, the show for the first time presents a rural School, which stands for restrictive and now outdated ideas and is another symbol of oppressive and judgmental thought models.

Also in his recent works, Erwin Wurm stays committed to pursuing an innovative take on the sculptural parameters of hull, mass, skin, volume, and time: His new series, Substitutes, Skins, or Flat Sculptures, illustrate how the artist makes a point of rethinking and reshaping the world of existing things, taking us as viewers on a journey of discovery of open territories of thought and art.

Erwin Wurm Psyche (As You Like It), 2024 262 × 115 × 68 cm, Aluminium, Farbe, Kleidung © Erwin Wurm / Bildrecht, Wien 2024 Foto: Markus Gradwohl

100 objects, 100 designers, 25 years, 25 categories, 1 country: The MAK exhibition AUT NOW: 100 × Austrian Design for the 21st Century provides a varied overview of the diversity and innovation in Austrian product design in the new millennium on the basis of 100 design objects. Each of the 25 thematic categories—from A for “Alpine” to Z for “Zeitgeist”—contains four objects that are representative of the wide range of things designed and produced in Austria from the year 2000 to the present day. They are all particularly remarkable examples of Austrian product design—role models for the 21st century. AUT NOW extends an invitation to admire and appreciate the functional, conceptual, and poetic qualities of contemporary design and discover surprising details in familiar things.

“Ideally, contemporary product design should represent a dynamic and holistic approach that revolves around the needs of contemporary society and the environment,” according to MAK Curators Sebastian Hackenschmidt and Marlies Wirth, who developed the exhibition together with Georg Schnitzer and Peter Umgeher, founders of the design studio Vandasye. With their exhibition series Design Everyday held during VIENNA DESIGN WEEK since 2017, Vandasye has regularly turned its attention to Austrian product design, identifying ideas that propose ambitious and inspiring but also sensible solutions to improve everyday life.

The 25 categories define the route through the exhibition, while allowing an indepth response to the question of what characterizes product design today. “Good design” must take into account social challenges and innovative ways of organizing work, as well as new production techniques, distribution channels, and marketing opportunities. Formal, material, typological, and technological criteria play just as much of a role as ergonomics, social and environmental considerations, and the preservation of resources. The emotional content of objects, characterized by “maximum rizz”—wit, creativity, and charisma—is also essential.

Using these categories AUT NOW creates a “school of seeing” on key aspects of product development and the design process that mostly remain invisible to users. The full spectrum of contemporary products is represented in the exhibition—from furniture, domestic appliances, tools, and lighting to accessories and consumer electronics to design for personal care, health, work, mobility, and much more.

From A for “Alpine” to Z for “Zeitgeist”

The categories should be understood as general characteristics of the chosen objects. For instance, “Alpine” subsumes the canon of forms and types that is widespread in the Alps and unmistakable in a wide range of practical objects: a chair, avalanche equipment, and even a bong.

“Material Opportunities” explores the role played by the choice of material and the unexpected possibilities that can arise with the right material—such as unbreakable eyeglass lenses or an edible dog bowl. “Re-Typification” reveals the surprising designs of supposedly unchangeable everyday objects like a ladder or a coat hanger, whereas “Empowerment” contains projects that give their users agency, such as cutlery for children with an age-appropriate design. And the “Invisible” category presents material or functional qualities that remain unseen for the user, in objects like a water bottle or an acoustic panel. Unexpected juxtapositions can be found in almost every category— when it comes to using existing pre-products or intentional Lo-Tek, or when reviewing circular design strategies that make systemic change possible.

With the chosen objects, designers, and manufacturers, the curatorial team sought to represent a range of different approaches, generations, and branches. Self-initiated experiments are presented alongside the production lines of major companies, technological innovations alongside traditional handicraft, and serial products alongside limited editions or pieces that have long been discontinued. Design from the early 2000s is part of the exhibition, as are prototypes that are currently in development, products by established designers and manufacturers, as well as projects by the next generation of designers. Almost a quarter of the exhibits in the show are from the MAK’s own collection; most pieces on display are loans, with the intention to add some of them to the collection on the occasion of the exhibition.

HyperFocal: 0

The exhibition Light Sound Senses explores light as a physical and natural and aesthetically usable phenomenon and aims to stimulate our diverse sensory perceptions. Visitors are invited to engage with multi-sensory works of art to heighten their own awareness of space, time, light, sound, taste and touch. Light is explored as an indicator of technological development and as a cultural construct with symbolic meaning. Through works from the Heidi Horten Collection as well as loans from TBA21 and site-specific and immersive installations – realized exclusively for the exhibition by invited artists – Light Sound Senses conveys a deeper understanding of the nature of light, sound and our five senses.

In the exhibition, which extends over two floors of the museum, visitors will get to know a pioneer of light art, László Moholy-Nagy, or encounter immersive light installations by Olafur Eliasson, Brigitte Kowanz and Siegrun Appelt. Appelt deals with the topic of light pollution and the scientific background of daylight research.

Tracey Emin and Joseph Kosuth use neon as an artistic and conceptual material. A room-filling sound installation by Austrian artist Bernhard Leitner encourages visitors to “see” sound; other artists use sound to achieve a stronger perception of their own bodies. Finally, works by Lena Henke and Ernesto Neto will stimulate the sense of smell and taste.

As a special feature of the exhibition, visitors are encouraged to interact with the works in a participatory way. One example of this is Carsten Nicolai’s work Bausatz noto, in which the visitors themselves act as sound artists: At a table with four record players, different colored vinyls with different timbres can be combined. Carsten Nicolai will create a light and sound installation exclusively for the exhibition.

The exhibition Light Sound Senses is to take a scientific-critical, humorous and artistic-aesthetic look at our sensory perceptions, to challenge them and play with them.

With works by:

Siegrun Appelt, John M Armleder, Cibelle Cavalli Bastos, Olafur Eliasson, Tracey Emin, Cerith Wyn Evans, Dan Flavin, Ceal Floyer, Peter Friedl, Gelatin, Helga Giffiths, Lena Henke, Carsten Höller, Krištof Kintera, Brigitte Kowanz, Joseph Kosuth,  Bernhard Leitner, Paul McCarthy, László Moholy-Nagy, Iván Navarro, Ernesto Neto, Carsten Nicolai, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Tony Oursler, Finnbogi Petursson, Ugo Rondinone, Christine Schörkhuber, SUPERFLEX, Iv Toshain and Martin Walde.

Curated by:

Julia Hartmann

The subject of friendship is thoroughly existential and timeless, cutting to the bone of human existence. A theme that spans all historical periods and across all regions of the world. At the same time, the subject seems particularly relevant right now: In light of the threatening state of the world, the countless crises, conflicts, and increasing social divisions, Dom Museum Wien’s decision to dedicate this exhibition to a conciliatory interpersonal subject is all the more important.

“In times when polarization in politics, society, and social media as well as rampant egotism on Dom Museum Wien that placed connective elements, the give-and-take of me-and-you, and the dialogical principle front and center”, says museum director Johanna Schwanberg, who curated the exhibition together with co-curator Klaus Speidel. The exhibition title deliberately shies away from purely positive, often idealized connotations of the word “friendship” as the harmony of two souls, to signalize that this is no romanticized “sunshine-and-rainbows” presentation. “In the Spirit of Friendship” also addresses problematic aspects related to this type of relationship.

Friendship is a basic human need: relationships with others, spiritual closeness, and chosen family shape our lives. The exhibition deals with the universal meaning of friendship as part of human social interaction – on a personal or political level. Facets of friendship are explored via graphics, painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation art. In addition to national and international loans and new commissioned works, the exhibition also offers insights into the collections of Dom Museum Wien.

Like in all preceding special exhibitions at Dom Museum Wien since its reopening in 2017, “In the Spirit of Friendship” doesn’t tell a chronological story but rather uses contrasts and juxtapositions of works from various periods of art history. The sculptures, paintings, drawings, photographs, and video installations span a historical arc from the Middle Ages to the present day. The selection comprises works from the historic holdings of the museum and the Otto Mauer Contemporary Collection as well as high-caliber loans from national and international collections, museums, abbeys, and galleries. The exhibition also incorporates several site-specific commissions and new acquisitions from numerous contemporary artists.

ARGENTINA. Buenos Aires. 1997. Mothers.

Marc Chagall—Lightness in dark times

Marc Chagall’s pictorial world defies the usual order of things. Nothing seems to be in its right place. There is only one constant in his life and work: the memory of his childhood and youth in Vitebsk.

In keeping with his roots in Orthodox Eastern Judaism, Chagall took a stance towards reality and its depiction different from that of his emancipated artist friends in the West. His doubts about visually verifiable reality led him to an original way to overcome the Jewish image ban. For the sake of the poetic representation of reality, he consciously accepts folkloristic simplifications and distortion of protagonists and houses. The people in Chagall’s pictures behave in outlandish ways: they walk through the air, play the violin on the roof. Chagall makes his figures larger or smaller according to their significance, not according to the optical laws of perspective. He piles spaces on top of each other and represents animals as equal to humans. In his late work, Chagall finally sacrificed form and construction altogether to the luster and transparent glow of sheer color.

100 works by the artist from all his creative years show the diversity of an oeuvre that never ceases to amaze. Chagall’s central themes are birth and motherhood, love, the circus, the Bible and death – with ever-recurring motifs: rooster and cow, goat or bull and fish, violinists, rabbis and clowns. Again and again, he reflects on his themes against the backdrop of personal experiences and world political events.

Chagall’s paintings give the impression of a human existence full of joie de vivre and happiness. In fact, it is the conflictful experience of joy and suffering that characterizes this work, cheerful and buoyant as it is, though without leaving out the dark and menacing: love, dance and play in times of persecution and displacement.

For the first time in its history, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna is dedicating a major special exhibition to Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606–1669). Never before has it been possible to admire such an abundance of major works by the master, one of the most important Dutch Baroque painters, in Austria. The exhibition takes a special approach in contrasting Rembrandt’s paintings with works by his brilliant pupil Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627–1678).

Rembrandt’s workshop was the centre of a lively exchange on artistic challenges: Both Rembrandt and Van Hoogstraten saw themselves as exploratory artists who were always seeking out new ways to depict nature and optical phenomena with deceptive truth to life. Rembrandt’s illusionistic skills also fascinated Van Hoogstraten and would yield a lasting influence on his works.

The exhibited works from different genres bear witness to the competition between the two artists, but also show innovative pictorial inventions which helped Van Hoogstraten celebrate great successes at the court in Vienna.

Moreover, Van Hoogstraten’s Introduction to the Academy of Painting (Inleyding), published in 1678, provides a unique source of information on Rembrandt’s workshop practices, teaching methods and art theoretical opinion.

Opening: 11 October 2024

The Nitsch Foundation together with Rita Nitsch is pleased to present the exhibition ‘SKIN PAINTEENS’ by internationally renowned artist Donna Huanca, her second solo show in Vienna. The presentation includes large-scale works on canvas as well as a sculptural installation, which together create an immersive, interdisciplinary and multi-sensory experience.

Around 20 years ago, Donna Huanca had a formative encounter with Hermann Nitsch during a major retrospective in Houston, Texas. This exhibition, which featured 52 paintings and 18 videos, made a deep impression on Huanca and marked a turning point in her artistic development. This experience led to a special bond based on mutual respect and admiration. Huanca still feels closely connected to Nitsch and his artistic legacy today.

In her works, Donna Huanca combines painting, sculpture and sound to create a deeply moving overall experience that appeals intensely to the physical presence of the viewer. Her works on canvas show subtle fragments of painted skin, which are photographed during her performances and then concealed under layers of colour, pigment, sand and clay. The two-dimensional abstractions reveal Huanca’s own physicality, which manifests itself in visible fingerprints and traces of her hands on the surface.

At the centre of the exhibition is a reflective sculpture cut from steel that rests on white sand and reflects the textured works in its surroundings. The amorphous forms of the sculpture are reminiscent of living organisms or rock formations and interact directly with the space and the viewer’s movements.

Donna Huanca’s multidisciplinary works develop a self-referential but constantly evolving language that understands the body and skin as tactile and ephemeral interfaces through which we experience the world. Her works explore space and time through the creation of complex assemblages of textures, forms and materials that emphasise the intimate connection between the natural world and the human experience.

The opening of the exhibition ‘SKIN PAINTEENS’ will take place on Friday, 11 October from 6 pm in the presence of the artist. Her works will then be on display at the Nitsch Foundation until 20 December 2024.

© Donna Huanca

The exhibition Ins Dunkle schwimmen presents contemporary art that explores the shaping of the individual into a creative subject.  It asks for continuations and deconstructions of the hopes that modernism placed in art as a supposedly authentic expression of inner life and in creativity as a tool for improving living conditions.

Today, self-actualization and self-expression are among the foundational components of entrepreneurial professionalism in much of the world.  “Self-actualization,” or doing the things that make you (figuratively?) burn with passion, is likewise a part of the idealized image of a successful life that is widely disseminated on social media. As coping strategies often present only individualized self-care rather than communal care solutions, and as ecological, social, and political crises escalate, relations of (self-)exploitation take on ever more existential significance.

As “self-designers” par excellence, artists have been the prototypes of the creative existence that has now become a job requirement for all members of society. The exhibition Ins Dunkle schwimmen gathers works of art that deal with these contradictory demands in the context of artistic production, encountering abysses and limits in the process. It features works that inquire into the conditions of the production of the self, explore the relationships between artistic production and work on one’s own life, and search for exit strategies from the instrumentalization of the pathos of creativity and freedom.

Further information on the exhibition:

https://kunstsammlungundarchiv.at/en/collection-art-architecture-design/projects/ins-dunkle-schwimmen-ausstellung/

Exact address: Schönlaterngasse 5, Staircase 8, 1st floor, 1010 Vienna

Franz West, Liège, 1989 © Archiv Franz West, Estate Franz West, Foto: Günter König/Sigmund Freud Privatstiftung

WERKSCHAU XXIX: Karl-Heinz Klopf. COMPLEX is the continuation of the annual exhibition series of FOTOGALERIE WIEN, in which contemporary artists are presented who have significantly contributed to the development of art photography and the new media in Austria.

© Karl-Heinz Klopf

With Come, but as a Daytime Comet, Flaka HALITI (*1982 in Priština) and Jimmie DURHAM (1940-2021) summon a survey of identity politics through subtle, poetic means, exposing and narrowing the scalar difference between manifestation and erasure.

The title evokes a sense of impending arrival, while reflecting on the almost imperceptible moment between the no longer and the not yet. The perception of such a moment — as rare as the sighting of a comet in daylight — paired with what can both be perceived as invitation and requirement to an indeterminate corporeal or incorporeal entity, hints at the elusive ambiguity, which unites the conceptual frameworks of Haliti and Durham.

Through Flaka Haliti’s works, enigmatic temporal layers and mechanisms veiling and unveiling prompt questions of causality and the conditions of displacement and liminality as identity-creating and socio-political imperatives. She investigates the paradoxicality between the alien and the familiar, subjecthood and objecthood, perception and (re-)presentation, reframing these concepts as mutually interdependent rather than oppositional forces.

Identity is also the organizing force in Jimmie Durham’s cosmos of playful forms. His agile approach to the nature of existence illustrates how he imbued the fundamental essence of things with his unique notion of semantics, reshaping their purpose and policy. In doing so, his works generate a sphere where identity is not a static construct but a fluid, ever-evolving discourse between the self and the other.
The dialogue between Haliti’s and Durham’s works creates a complex exploration of factors inherent in identity formation, asking how we might reconcile the irreversible passage of time with the enduring structures of power and resistance. At the same time, they engage with identity as something ethereal yet charged with significance, demanding close attention.

(Text: Teresa Kamencek)

Opening: 24 Oct 2024 6:00 pm, Schleifmühlgasse 1

Watching the film—composed of four lengthy shots of people reading, interspersed with short excerpts from their chosen books—you occasionally get the feeling of staring into a mirror, with the subjects’ rhythm of perusal, reexamination, and contemplation bearing a close and slightly uncomfortable resemblance to your own.

The first reader, Clara McHale-Ribot, is making her way through D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love, but this doesn’t become apparent until at least the ten-minute mark, when she shifts her position and exposes the book’s jacket to the camera for a short while. And so on for each of the four shots, featuring, in order, the author Rachel Kushner, the sociologist Richard Hedbige, and the performance artist Simone Forti.

It’s tempting, when writing about READERS, to stop at recreating the hypnotic feeling of watching the film. But this can give the false impression that Benning’s direction is nonexistent instead of just skillfully restrained; that his craft consists of turning on the camera and waiting for his viewers to do the hard work. A more accurate statement would be that Benning, aims to foster and celebrate the artistry of other people without compromising his own—a goal hinted at in READER’s cast of world-class thinkers and creators. This desire to connect with the ordinary, adventurous viewer also seems to have played a part in the director’s switch from 16mm to digital a decade ago.

Benning’s artistry is most visible in READERS at those moments when the film jumps between ways of seeing. In each short period following a shot of a reader, after we’ve spent oh-so much time scanning the frame at our own pace, we’re suddenly forced to read for ourselves, right to left and top to bottom. The effect is jarring but invigorating and even a little funny, lying somewhere between a non sequitur, a big reveal, and a punch line.

Benning’s four readers engage in a practice that’s becoming rarer with each passing day: spending time by themselves, sans electronic distractions of any kind, and pondering. By celebrating this, Benning’s output offers the ultimate rebuttal to slow cinema’s detractors. How can patient contemplation be trivial when it’s going extinct?

(quot. Jackson Arn, Long, Hard Looks, 2018)

Please feel free to contact the gallery for further information!

Opening on Wednesday, October 23, 6 – 9 pm
Artist talk with Louisa Gagliardi and Joshua Amissah, 6.30 pm

Galerie Eva Presenhuber is pleased to present Whereabouts, the gallery’s third exhibition with the Swiss artist Louisa Gagliardi. It is her first solo exhibition in Austria.

Neither here nor there. In her most recent endeavor, Louisa Gagliardi continues her exploration of liminality, delving into transitional spaces that define our existence in both the physical post- internet world and the psychological landscapes we navigate daily. While addressing the eerie, surreal, and sometimes petrifying nature of in-between spaces—staircases, tunnels, and doorways—where the boundaries between presence and absence blur, this collection of work simultaneously seeks to dissect contemporary culture as it relates to identity and collective consciousness, exploring how these forces shape societal norms and individual behaviorism.

Volontary Prisoner, 2024, © Louisa Gagliardi

AMOAKO BOAFO – PROPER LOVE

In autumn 2024 the Belvedere is staging Europe’s first museum exhibition on the art of Ghanaian painter Amoako Boafo (born 1984 in Accra). As one of the most important voices from a new generation of Black artists, Boafo portrays his friends, acquaintances, and people from public life, presenting a contemporary image of Black self-empowerment and self-perception.

This exhibition closes, for the time being, a circle in the artist’s biography: After graduating from art college in Accra, Boafo began studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 2014. These were years that shaped him as an artist, in which he developed his signature style characterized by his unusual finger-painting technique. Applied to the human body, this creates a sculptural effect that contrasts with the flatness of the rest of the painting. The people portrayed by Boafo embody the idea of Black identity that draws on its own culture, to be understood as an act of resistance against the racist labels of a predominantly white society. This form of Black subjectivity is expressed in the appearance of the sitters, who confront the viewer as self-confident individuals and often seek direct eye contact. Boafo imagined the collage-like garments using textured paper, borrowing from floral and geometric wallpaper patterns as well as referencing Black culture’s historical and political dress codes. The artist’s intensive engagement with Black history is subtly reflected in his paintings that include motifs inspired by literary works by key pioneers of the Black Freedom Movement.

In addition to the exhibition at the Lower Belvedere, Boafo’s works will be integrated in the permanent displays on Vienna 1900 at the Upper Belvedere, showing them in connection with the pictures of key art-historical figures such as Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt

Amoako Boafo, Enyonam’s Black Shawl, 2020 © Courtesy des Künstlers und Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Paris © Bildrecht, Wien 2024

Considering the collection

Considering the Collection & An Insert by… is a recently established temporary exhibition format presenting highlights from the Paintings Gallery collection, from Bosch to Rubens, as well as works with links to the Insert, an artistic intervention created by a contemporary artist as a critical statement on the Academy’s historical art collections. The second Insert in the series features Montreal-based Austrian artist Klaus Scherübel.

The exhibition concentrates on the Baroque period, presenting a cross-section of the core of the collection, the bequest of Anton Paula Graf Lamberg-Sprinzenstein from 1822. Other points of focus are the development of representations of space in early modern painting north and south of the Alps, the work of the Renaissance artist Lucas Cranach the Elder, portraits and self- portraits of artists in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the use of architectural fragments in Baroque painting. These topics refer to Scherübel’s insert, Cranach’s Holy Productivity VOL. 28.

Curated by Claudia Koch and Sabine Folie.

More information at: https://www.akbild.ac.at/de/museum-und-ausstellungen/kunstsammlungen/aktuelles/gemaeldegalerie/ausstellungen/2024/ausstellung-cranachs-klaus 

EVENT LANGUAGE: GERMAN

Opening: November 6, 6 pm

Based on Richard Sennett’s work «Flesh and Stone», which examines the historical development of urban life and structures in Western civilization through physical and temporal experiences, artists Sophia Gatzkan and Sofia Goscinski dedicate this duo exhibition to the exploration of transience, transformation, and renewal in a sculptural context.

Sophia Gatzkan utilizes physical fragments («flesh») in the form of casts or imprints, combined with materials such as metal, leather, and plastic. These sculptures evoke human –object hybrids, prosthetics, or futuristic body concepts. The juxtaposition of ephemeral elements with robust materials highlights the tension between transience and permanence.

In contrast, Sofia Goscinski employs concrete works to further emphasize the element of durability («stone»). Concrete, as a stable building material for urban structures, is presented fragmentarily, in the form of blocks or painted panels resembling parts of a fresco or graffiti-covered city walls. Here, the engagement takes the form of a search for traces that explores temporal dimensions and changes without the immediate presence of the human body.

The duo exhibition «raw upon raw» presents multifaceted reflections on the complex relationships between temporality, materiality, and physical experience. Together, the artists seek a deeper understanding of the changes and continuities that occur in the interplay between flesh (the human body) and stone (urban structures).

MOTHS, BATS AND VELVET WORMS! MOTHS, BATS AND HERETICS!

Monster Chetwynd’s first solo museum exhibition in Austria interweaves art, (hi)story, theory, craft, and community into a large-scale work explicitly developed for the house, which will be activated and animated by performers.

Chetwynd’s cross-genre practice, encompassing film, collage, painting, and installation, combines elements of folk theater, pop culture, and surrealist cinema. Chetwynd is known for anarchic bric-àbrac-performances with handmade costumes, props, and sets, often employing simple materials that are easy to use and adapt. The emphasis is on the collaborative process of creating the artwork. Chetwynd describes the artistic work as “impatiently made,” yet draws on carefully researched, diverse cultural references, ranging from Christine de Pizan to Silvia Federici.

BIOGRAPHY

Monster Chetwynd (b. 1973, London), formerly also known as Spartacus Chetwynd and Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, lives and works in Zurich, where ze has been teaching at the Zurich University of the Arts since 2020. Chetwynd was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2012 and exhibits internationally in art institutions and public spaces.

Installation view, Monster Chetwynd, A CAT IS NOT A DOG, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 3 March – 29 May 2023 © Monster Chetwynd. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London. Photo: Norbert Miguletz / Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt

In his solo exhibition “Floating” at Smolka Contemporary, Mario Kiesenhofer presents new works from his ongoing series “Treasure”, which was first exhibited in 2023/24 at the tresor of the Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien and for which he portrayed the queer rave scene in Eastern Europe with a focus on Warsaw.*

In this exhibition, Kiesenhofer celebrates the queer community in Budapest and captures the techno beats with his camera. He shows gem-colored portraits of key figures in the Hungarian scene, framed in shiny chrome frames. Portraits that counter discriminatory narratives of illiberal systems with a queer perspective and create visibility for marginalized identities. Bathed in colored flashlight, Mario Kiesenhofer’s photographs reflect a party culture in which the techno scene of the 1990s is experiencing a revival and at the same time making a highly resistant and political claim. The club becomes an inclusive place of protest and the dance floor a stage for queerness in times of increasing autocratisation.

The exhibition title “Floating” refers, among other things, to the precarious situation of queer people in Hungary and points out that their rights are constantly in limbo, as they are repeatedly threatened by political and social repression. With the rise of illiberal systems and the accompanying queer hostility, as pushed for example by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, queer communities within the EU are facing increasing pressure and hard-won human rights are being systematically restricted.

Mario Kiesenhofer (*1984 in Freistadt, Austria) lives in Vienna and works with photography, video, text and installation. His focus is on the representation and visibility of queer communities and the question of the significance of queer safe spaces in our present. Opaque materials, glass filters, special framing techniques and reflective surfaces are inherent elements in the artist’s oeuvre. Combined with photographs, they create pictorial spaces that are simultaneously tangible and intangible, physical and metaphysical.

* Mario Kiesenhofer’s solo exhibition “Treasure” at the tresor of Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien was curated by Lisa Ortner-Kreil. As part of the exhibition “Floating” at Smolka Contemporary, an artist talk between Mario Kiesenhofer and Lisa Ortner-Kreil will take place.

Based on the architecture of decommissioned nuclear power plants, Imran Channa and Kateryna Lysovenko research the post anthropocene landscape. Human desire and technological development show the consequences on the biosphere, causing devastation and the disappearance of many creatures. Using artificial intelligence, digital software as well as large-scale analogue drawing and painting, Imran Channa and Kateryna Lysovenko create ‘A Fable for Tomorrow’, – a new landscape from which humans have disappeared, but where seeds of new life are emerging.

Imran Channa & Kateryna Lysovenko, A Fable for Tomorrow, philomena+, image by AI

LIVING APART TOGETHER is a group exhibition at Kunsthalle Exnergasse by elephy, an artist collective and film production platform based in Brussels.

The show responds to elephy’s desire for community across localities, means of production and the temporalities of lived experience. It looks at women’s experiences and their socio-economic reality, class struggles, immigration, and community through lenses of intimacy and care.

For this, elephy puts films in dialogue with moving image works by artists working in Austria and expands this conversation to the film archives of our respective hometowns, ARGOS (BE) and sixpackfilm (AT).

elephy is an artist-run production platform for moving image based in Brussels, Belgium, founded by artists Rebecca Jane Arthur, Chloë Delanghe, Eva Giolo and Christina Stuhlberger in 2018.

They are an organisational structure for film production as well as a community committed to creating a space for individual and collective agency within a framework of convivial solidarity. As artists, they apply documentary strategies and personal narration to paint filmic portraits of people and places that create windows into the unseen; usually private, interior worlds.

'For Rosa’, Gifts, Kathi Hofer