Statement by Nicole Fernández Ferrer, director of the Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir, in the context of the exhibition Defiant Muses. Delphine Seyrig and the Feminist Video Collectives of 1970s and 1980s France. The Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir was created in 1982 by Carole Roussopoulos, Delphine Seyrig and Ioana Wieder. The feminist activists aimed their cameras at the preservation and creation of audiovisual documents concerning the history of women, their rights, fights and creations.
“I want to encourage viewers to question the messages that are constructed through images.” Anna Spanlang
In her work CEREAL / Soy Claudia, soy Esther y soy Teresa. Soy Ingrid, soy Fabiola y soy Valeria, on view in the exhibition Handspells, Anna Spanlang uses archival material from almost 11 years. She searches for poetic aesthetics in everyday situations recorded on her mobile phone, creating connections between the private and the public.
In the exhibition Handspells, Chin Tsao shows several sculptural works as well as a video installation and a photograph. The sculptures refer to both the contexts of chinoiserie and Art Deco, moments of cultural exchange between Europe and the Far East in the 18th century. With her video work, the artist tries to find a new perspective on the complex relations between technology, culture, economy, and the body, which make our current techno-culture.
“My works are inspired by observations of nature and mythological narratives – by attempts to explain our world.” Nora Severios
Spun from animal and plant fibers, flax, angora rabbit wool, banana fiber, mulberry silk, and more: Nora Severios provides insight into her works, working methods and the relationship between humans, (wild) animals and domestication.
What does it take to process what is happening around us, to heal, and maybe even to grow? Follow Laura Amann through the exhibition Do Nothing, Feel Everything, on view at Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz. The curator introduces works by Tony Cokes, Patricia Domínguez, Shana Moulton, and more.
Jojo Gronostay´s works pose questions about hierarchies (between the Global South and the Global North and between “high” and applied arts), identity (his own and the collective), power, and value. In his video, he introduces the artworks on view in the exhibition Handspells. Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2021.
“If I sum up my documentary Prägung [Imprint] in two words, hate and violence come closest – although both terms hardly appear in the film, neither as themes nor concrete situations.” Cho Beom-Seok
Cho Beom-Seok shares insights into his documentary Prägung [Imprint] (2021) as well as his search for and limitations of images.
Follow Aziza Harmel through the exhibition Do Nothing, Feel Everything, on view at Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz. The curator introduces works from Yesmine Ben Khelil, Niklas Lichti, Tom Seidmann Freud, Stanislava Kovalcikova, Sophie Carapetian and Jakob Jakobsen and Rahima Gambo.
On the basis of their lectures in the exhibition Ines Doujak. Geistervölker students from the Master of Arts Education program at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna embarked on an associative journey of thoughts through the exhibition. The resulting video clip is an audiovisual collage of musical and performative interventions that arose from the engagement with Ines Doujak‘s artistic works.
In the final episode of Is the emperor naked? Contemporary art for skeptics, Klaus Speidel speaks about approaching and understanding contemporary art, especially in comparison to old art.
Klaus Speidel, author of the texts of the exhibition guide to Ines Doujak. Geistervölker, explains in the fifth episode of the web series Is the emperor naked? Contemporary art for skeptics his approach to writing about art and the role of the artist’s intention.
Klaus Speidel takes up the sculpture Bauhütte (Monumental Instability) (2018) by Ines Doujak to talk about the relationship between material and artwork.
In the third episode of the web series Is the emperor naked? Contemporary art for skeptics, Klaus Speidel talks about the art market and how prices and value of (art)works are determined.
In the second episode of the web series Is the emperor naked? Contemporary art for skeptics, Klaus Speidel focuses on Ines Doujak´s work series Boutique (2012 – ongoing), and how the textiles and objects on display are more than art pieces pretending to be clothes.
Are you skeptical concerning contemporary art, find it difficult or know people who do? This web series is for you. Philosopher, art critic and curator Klaus Speidel not only explains Ines Doujak’s work, on show in the exhibition Geistervölker, but also openly discusses difficulties and criticism.
“I wanted to bring the essay to the ground – in a way to counter the loftiness of the visions represented in it.” Ho Rui An on The Long Boom
Artist Ho Rui An presents two of is artworks, on show in his solo exhibition The Ends of a Long Boom at Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz.
“A monument to care and solidarity.” Miguel A. López
Curator Miguel A. López introduces two works by Cecilia Vicuña: a collage called Árbol de manos [Tree of Hands], 1974, as well as a monumental dyed-wool installation called Burnt Quipu, 2018.
On the occasion of the opening of And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers?, we had the opportunity to speak with members of the collectives Chto Delat and Zapantera Negra about social movements and the urgency of the current political moment. The connection of art, political movements and engagement for political solidarity is an important part of both their artistic practices.
Laura Amann, Amanda Piña and Anna Witt talk about the necessity of overcoming inscribed colonial ideas of value, as well as about the need to comprehend the connection of aesthetic and modern colonial discourse and narrative.
Follow Imayna Caceres on her My View tour of And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers? In her practise, the artist, writer and researcher is interested in the makings of communities in more-than-human worlds, who engages with forms of knowledge that exceed modernity and Western knowledge.
The collective Chto Delat [What Is to Be Done?] presents their contributions to And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers?: a textile map and a film based on the collective’s interactions with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation while visiting the Mexican state of Chiapas.
Zbyněk Baladrán, Laďa Gažiová and František Nistor guide you through the exhibition Manuš Means Human. They are part of the Averklub Collective, a loosely organized group of artists, theorists, and activists. Its core is constituted by several residents of the Chanov housing estate, which is considered to be the largest Roma settlement in the Czech Republic.
On April 23 and 24, the symposium Sharing and Responding took place in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the context of our exhibition Cybernetics of the Poor. Over two days and four panels, cybernetic structures in language and art, planning and surveillance were under discussion . Concept by Ana de Almeida, Anke Dyes, Nina Kerschbaumer and Inka Meißner.
On April 23 and 24, the symposium Sharing and Responding took place in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the context of our exhibition Cybernetics of the Poor. Over two days and four panels, cybernetic structures in language and art, planning and surveillance were under discussion . Concept by Ana de Almeida, Anke Dyes, Nina Kerschbaumer and Inka Meißner.
On April 23 and 24, the symposium Sharing and Responding took place in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the context of our exhibition Cybernetics of the Poor. Over two days and four panels, cybernetic structures in language and art, planning and surveillance were under discussion . Concept by Ana de Almeida, Anke Dyes, Nina Kerschbaumer and Inka Meißner.
On April 23 and 24, the symposium Sharing and Responding took place in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in the context of our exhibition Cybernetics of the Poor. Over two days and four panels, cybernetic structures in language and art, planning and surveillance were under discussion . Concept by Ana de Almeida, Anke Dyes, Nina Kerschbaumer and Inka Meißner.
Join Eva Böhm (sign language interpreter) and Wolfgang Brunner (art education Kunsthalle Wien) on their overview tour of And if devoted my life to one of its feathers? and experience the exhibition from a new perspective via video tour.
In the performance Automatic Electronic Predictive Poetry, Babi Badalov applies similar transformations, word games and misinterpretations of language, phonetics and translations as in his textile installations but within the digital context of the AI used by our daily companion: the mobile phone. Using more than five languages himself, Badalov’s phone has ‘learned’ a lot of vocabulary without really understanding while at the same time revealing hierarchies in how well languages are translated – and a quasi racist behaviour towards imperfect pronunciation. As such the performance becomes sort of a digital Dada experiment in absurdist poetry based on the confusion of human and technoid voices.
The artist and theoretician Axel Stockburger discusses the exhibition Cybernetics of the Poor with a focus on the formative effects of cybernetic processes on artistic practices and the social impacts of cybernetic control systems and their cultural reception.
With the last My View tour we say goodbye to the “shadow citizens”: The artist and filmmaker Johannes Gierlinger talks about Želimir Žilnik’s documentary strategies and narrative techniques and how they inspired his own filmmaking practice.
“The cultural industry produces stars: camera, light, and editing charge the image of a hairy chest, the blink of an eye, with an artificial sexual energy, and then the viewers pay a lot of money to get closer to a fictional character who never existed.
Želimir Žilnik’s materialist cinematic art is the antithesis of this. His cheerful approach to his protagonists, his relaxed and composed curiosity about real people allows their lust for life, their corporeality to grow into his films – as a headstrong stubbornness that quite naturally and sometimes unconsciously confronts unjust circumstances.
Never does he let the disenfranchised become bodies of evidence for his worldview. They always remain the authors of their own desires, their life plans, the lust of their imperfected muscles, butts, feet, wishes, plans, teeth. This infuses his films with a smack of sensuality and anarchistic wit. It lures the appetite of the audience not to the big screen stars but to real, imperfect humans in their – our – own lives.
We exit Žilnik’s cinema, kiss the next best, and start a revolution together.”
Tina Leisch is a film, text, and theatre maker and a political activist.
My View is a series of tours in which experts, amateurs, and interesting people are invited to present their personal view of the exhibition.
A motley group of five people is approaching the exhibition Želimir Žilnik. Shadow Citizens in an artistic-performative way. Natascha Bonosevich, Marco Otoya, Ingrid Porzner, Tabea Strobl and Soheil Zamani got to know each other during the workshop Who may object? which took place under the direction of Nina Kusturica as a cooperation between Burgtheaterstudio, Brunnenpassage and Kunsthalle Wien. And again they ask themselves: Who is allowed to do what? What is our stand towards the content of Zilnik‘s works and in what form? Where do we find ourselves in it, where do we add something? Between performative moments, they tell their own stories and reflect on different realities.
Follow Arantzazu Saratxaga Arregi – philosopher and media theorist with a focus on matrixial philosophy – through the exhibition Cybernetics of the Poor while she is talking about the history and controversial topics of cybernetics.
Join Jahson the Scientist on his My view tour through the Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2020 exhibition. The Spoken Word Artist and MC offers his insightful take on Weaving Truths, Untangling Fictions, intertwining poetry, science and philosophy.
During the lockdown we have recorded a guided tour through the exhibition Cybernetics of the Poor with artist Ana de Almeida, who visits the lonesome artworks and comforts them with selected readings. You can follow her on a performative walk through the show and experience it from another angle.
For the launch of the publication Shadow Citizens, the authors of the texts – Boris Buden, Greg de Cuir Jr, Ana Janevski, Dijana Jelača, Edit Molnar, Bert Rebhandl, and Marcel Schwierin – discuss different aspects of Želimir Žilnik’s body of work.
Želimir Žilnik takes you on a tour through Shadow Citizens. The exhibition includes his iconic shorts, as well as feature films, film excerpts, and documentary material, thus covering Žilnik’s entire œuvre.
Follow curator Diedrich Diederichsen on a tour through the space during the setup of the exhibition Cybernetics of the Poor for more details about the participating artists and how their works are connected to cybernetics.
Curator Diedrich Diederichsen gives an introduction to the exhibition Cybernetics of the Poor and explains the origins and the evolution of the concept of cybernetics and how it has changed over the course of time. Furthermore, he describes the reciprocities between cybernetics and art (today) based on selected works of participating artists.
In a conversation with juror Joanna Warsza, the two prize-winners Abiona Esther Ojo and Huda Takriti describe in detail the backgrounds and development of their works and provide insights into their artistic practices – and give us viewers the opportunity to discover the numerous parallels in their different approaches.
This year’s Kunsthalle Wien Prize is awarded to Abiona Esther Ojo (graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna) and Huda Takriti (graduate of the University of Applied Arts Vienna). The awards are presented by Lucas Gehrmann (curator of the exhibition), Johan F. Hartle (rector of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), Eva-Maria Stadler (vice-rector of the University of Applied Arts Vienna), and WHW (directors of Kunsthalle Wien).
The curators of the exhibition Želimir Žilnik. Shadow Citizens What, How & for Whom / WHW (Ivet Ćurlin, Ana Dević, Nataša Ilić and Sabina Sabolović) talk about the relevance of Žilnik’s artistic and political vision for our present times and the privilege of having worked with the filmmaker for many years.
Film curator Jurij Meden talks about his film essay Želimir Žilnik: The Films in My Life as part of Shadow Citizens, reflecting on the ways in which Žilnik’s works intersect with wider film history.
Ana Janevski curated the section in the exhibition Shadow Citizens that focuses on the amateur cine clubs in former Yugoslavia where Želimir Žilnik got his start. In her curator’s tour, she discusses topics addressed by the presented works of and elaborates on the works’ background.
We talked to artists Carla Bobadilla, Eduard Freudmann, Luiza Margan, and Margot Pilz whose works are on show in the hands-on exhibition “Space for Kids. It’s your Mo(nu)ment!” raising questions about who has been honored with a monument in the past and who has been forgotten thus far. Which moments in history do we want to or should we remember together? For whom or what would you build a monument? And what would your monument look like?
Artist Cassie Thornton discusses “The Hologram”, a mythoreal collective peer-to-peer health project. “The Hologram”, based on the understanding that all our crises are connected and everyone is a little sick, is a viral four-person health monitoring and diagnostic system practiced from couches all over the world.
Ausgehend von Oliver Resslers künstlerischer Praxis und der in der aktuellen Ausstellung zu sehenden sechsteiligen Filmserie Everything’s Coming Together While Everything’s Falling Apart widmen sich Ressler und Başak Şenova in ihrem Gespräch den sozio-politischen Aspekten der aufkommenden Klimabewegungen.
In a conversation between Oliver Ressler and Başak Şenova the two will address some of the socio-political aspects of emerging climate movements by reflecting upon Ressler’s practice. Tthe talk evolves around Ressler’s artistic research, practice and methodologies by navigating through the six-part film series Everything’s Coming Together While Everything’s Falling Apart which is on show in the current exhibition.
We talked to artist Tim Etchells talks about his artworks as part of our current exhibition “… of bread, wine, cars, security and peace”. He gives detailed insights about his interest in language, both spoken and written and how this influences his way of working and how language and the choice of words can be political per se.
We spoke with artist Johanna Tinzl about her work “Back in Vienna – Body Adaptations”, which she presented as a triptych in the main courtyard of Museumsquartier as part of KISS. It excerpts three photographs from a series of nine portraying Holocaust survivor Helga Pollak-Kinsky who together with the artist returned to chosen places in Vienna and performed reencounter rituals.
Unveiling of the Hausfrauendenkmal through Margot Pilz followed by ten statements from invited speakers. Sabine Alena, Lena Freimüller, Katharina Mader, Gabriele Schor, Nina Schedlmayer, Petra Unger, and Dorothea Zeyringer & Tiina Sööt deliver comments on the artwork and its feminist dimension as well as around domestic work and the struggle for its recognition.
The workshop with Mary Maggic begins with a talk on hormonal histories and fictions and finishes with a hands-on urine hormone extraction protocol. It is part of a series of online talks and workshops with practitioners of Pirate Care within the exhibition “… of bread, wine, cars, security and peace”.
“Pirate Care” is mapping collective practices that are emerging in response to the various aspects of the neoliberal crisis of care, ranging from the criminalization of migration to the rollback of reproductive rights or the introduction of workfare regimes. As part of the exhibition “…of bread, wine, cars, security and peace” Valeria Graziano, Marcell Mars and Tomislav Medak introduce the collective Pirate Care Syllabus and the technopolitical decisions behind it.
We talk to artist Thomas Geiger about his performance series “Festival of Minimal Actions” which he realized as part of the exhibition project KISS. From July 15, to August 2, 2020, Geiger has reenacted one performance daily by international artist colleagues around Reumannplatz in Vienna-Favoriten.
We talked to artist Adji Dieye about her installation “Maggic Cube” in which she takes her visual cues from advertising tropes, while specifically parodying those of the Swiss bouillon cube manufacturer Maggi. In her artistic practice Dieye asks how advertising informs the public imagination and our general perception of ourselves.
The point of departure for the three-channel video installation “Mission Accomplished: BELANCIEGE” is the fall of the Berlin Wall and how this historical event paved the way for commodification and privatization. Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze and Miloš Trakilović talk about their joint work with Hito Steyerl which is part of the exhibition “…of bread, wine, cars, security and peace”.
We talked to artist Selma Selman about her work that is informed by coming of age during the Bosnian War and as a result, questions of statelessness, multi-generational trauma, and survival occupy center stage.
We talked to artist Victoria Lomasko about her graphic reportages and murals. She tells the story of post-Soviet Russia from the point of view of the voiceless and invisible by using the immediacy and directness of the graphic style of comic books.
In the “Mixed Double” format, two people from different departments of Kunsthalle Wien guide through the exhibition and give their personal view on the topics which are discussed within the exhibition. This time Hektor Peljak from exhibition management and art educator Michael Simku tell you a bit more about the works of artists Milica Tomić, Ines Doujak, Oliver Ressler,Vlatka Horvat, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, and Jessika Khazrik.
We talked to artist Vlatka Horvat about her installations in the exhibition … of bread, wine, cars, security and peace that explore the human body’s relationship to its built environment.
We talked to artist Milica Tomić about her work in the exhibition … of bread, wine, cars, security and peace and about her assertion that social disobedience can function as a disruptive force which unravels and portrays systematic violence.
In the “Mixed Double” format, two people from different departments of Kunsthalle Wien guide through the exhibition and give their personal view on the topics which are discussed within the exhibition. This time Adina Hasler from marketing and art educator Martin Walkner tell you a bit more about the works of artists Adji Dieye, Dan Perjovschi, Melanie Ebenhoch and Marlene Streeruwitz.
We talked to Saddie Choua about her six-channel video installation “Am I The Only One Who Is Like Me?”, that weaves new connections between images and sound and leads the viewer into an intricate audiovisual collage.
We talked to artist Andreas Siekmann about his work “Heads” that addresses the implications of economic developments and processes of gentrification and privatization.
Join Eva Böhm (sign language interpreter) and Wolfgang Brunner on a video tour through the exhibition “… of bread, wine, cars, security and peace” and experience the exhibition from a new perspective.
We talked to artist Jessika Khazrik in her immersive installation “VRLAMXXAB8ND” that revisits the correlations between the economy and ecology, and presents reflections on liquidity, flood, scarcity, confiscation politics and global solidarity.
We talked to artist Wendelien van Oldenborgh whose films often explore a multiplicity of voices in carefully staged encounters revealing a layered historical account of contemporary culture.
Our Sunday tours “Desires, Dreams and Demands” through the exhibition “… of bread, wine, cars, security and peace” are now taking place on the web – every week you can experience the exhibition from a new perspective in a video tour.
We talked to artist and filmmaker Oliver Ressler about his projects on issues such as economics, democracy, global warming, forms of resistance, and social alternatives.
We talked to artist Monika Grabuschnigg about her sculptures, how they develop and how being political shapes our everyday lives and doings.
We talked to artist Dan Perjovschi about his drawings that comment with piercing irony on the absurdities and cynicisms of our “brave new world.”
Victoria Lomasko – Artist in Residence 2020 of studio das weisse haus in cooperation with Kunsthalle Wien as part of the exhibition … of bread, wine, cars, security and peace – discusses her engaged artistic practice of drawing.
The White West is a conference conceptualized by Kader Attia and Ana Teixeira Pinto devoted to theorizing the missing link between colonialism and fascism, and the structuring force of race in geopolitics.
Nina Vobruba – winner of the Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2019 – talks about her project nest bau, for which she has transplanted parts of a collective, self-governing living space into the exhibition hall of Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier. The work was on show together with the second winner Malte Zander from 29/11 2019 to 26/1 2020.
What, How & for Whom / WHW announce the start of their new program at Kunsthalle Wien with a series of performances and events. The first event is by the legendary performance artist Sylvia Palacios Whitman. Her work has only recently come to wider international attention, and she does not perform often. This is therefore an exceptional opportunity for a Viennese audience to be able to experience her work live.
Andreas Fogarasi’s exhibition Nine Buildings, Stripped focuses on urban transformation processes and their manifestations in surfaces. We visited him at his studio before the opening and talked about the concept of the exhibition.
Time Is Thirsty is a journey through time and space in the form of an exhibition: A complex ensemble of contemporary artworks and artefacts from the early 90s – more precisely from 1992, the founding year of the Kunsthalle Wien. We talked to artists Cara Benedetto, Florence Bonnefous, Fabio Quaranta, Peter Rehberg, Georgia Sagri, and curator Luca Lo Pinto about their contributions.
The exhibition Hysterical Mining analysed the material worlds we are creating through technology and technology’s role in shaping local and global configurations of power, forms of identity, and ways of living. We talked to artists of the exhibition about their contributions and recorded conversations, lectures and performances.
Enlivened by a dash of irony and with what appears to be playful ease, Heinz Frank’s formal-visual, intellectual, and material balancing acts, which often take inspiration from diverse cultural strands, recombine what society and tradition would keep strictly separate in manifold variations. Before the opening of his exhibition The Angle of the End Always Comes from Behind at Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz we visited Frank in his studio and talked to him about his “art”.
Annette Kelm’s exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien turns the spotlight on works in which architecture, design, or constellations of seemingly mundane objects are revealed to be visual manifestations of complex genealogies.
The two artists Ting-Jung Chen and Hui Ye awarded the Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2018 discuss current (as well as historic forms) of transmission of immaterial goods that traverse across political and ideological boundaries – specifically those of Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China, their countries of origin.
The exhibtion Antarctica looks at the pattern underlying alienation – this “relationship based on the absence of a relationship.” Showing numerous contemporary artworks; the exhibition explores how the term “alienation” functions in our world today.
Saâdane Afif’s practice is characterized by extreme variability—even fluidity—between forms, categories, inspirations and methods used. Always pushing the limits of the artwork as an object fashioned by a demiurge artist, he creates ever-changing works that are only temporarily crystallized.
Artist Olaf Nicolai talks to Luca Lo Pinto about the ideas behind the exhibition There Is No Place Before Arrival, the interventions taking place across different venues in Vienna, as well as the “method” that informs his artistic approach.
A series of talks with artists, publishers, and graphic designers discussing artistic publishing activities is part of the exhibition project Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox: 1989–2017