Art Is Concrete. And So Is Truth?

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Art Is Concrete. And So Is Truth?

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Art Is Concrete. And So Is Truth?
Co-produced by steirischer herbst

Anna Jermolaewa, Nostalgia
Opening: 29. 9. 2012, 2pm
30.9. – 14.10.2012

subREAL, Dataflow: a retrospective game of chance
Opening: 19.10.2012, 7pm
20.10. – 4.11.2012

Johanna & Helmut Kandl, You only live twice
Opening: 9.11.2012, 7pm
10.11. – 25.11.2012

Stefan Panhans, Untitled & Items for Possible Video Sets – Concrete Run
Opening and Performance: 30.11.2012, 7pm
1.12. – 16.12.2012

G.R.A.M., Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ne, Ne, Ne, Ne
Opening and Performance: 21.12.2012, 7pm
22.12.2012 – 6.1.2013

Stefanie Seibold, Matt und Schlapp wie Schnee
Opening: 11.1.2013, 7pm
12.1. – 27.1.2013

Christodoulos Panayiotou, The Invention of Antiquity
Opening: 1.2.2013, 7pm
2.2. – 17.2.2013

Furnishing:
Nicole Six & Paul Petritsch

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Under the leitmotif “Truth Is Concrete”, the steirische herbst festival 2012 pursues the potentiality of concrete truth as a working hypothesis and seeks direct action, concrete transition, and knowledge. “An art that not only presents and documents but that engages in specific political and social situations—and an activism that not only acts for the sake of acting but searches for intelligent, creative means of self-empowerment.” The exhibition project by Camera Austria with the modified title “ART Is Concrete” has been cooperatively developed together with the festival, in reaction to this leitmotif and the implications presented by its content, especially when it comes to the issue of (re)presentation/documentation. The contradiction of “real politics”, the “real” world, and (re)presentation is challenged by us here, very much as per Jean-Luc Godard, who in 1967 asserted: “Art is not a reflection of reality. It’s the reality of this reflection.” And, as such, art is a political intervention, which Godard likewise demonstrated. The gesture of the reality of art itself is therefore set against the assumption that art remains immersed within a symbolic politics of representation. Assuming that the world is far from being a transparent entity recognisable without intellectual effort, as Stuart Hall writes, both politics and art emerge as different regimes of interpretation and change, yet with the one that is weighted as “truth” or “reality” also being the consequence of an exercise of specific power. So, in which reproduction of power have we always been enmeshed, making us prone to reclaim that something like truth intrinsically resides within either art or politics?

In seven consecutive individual presentations, for which the artists conceived new works, Camera Austria is enmeshing, based on these discursive points of origin, photographic images in various artistic fields of agency that simultaneously transgress and constitute the image: memories, acts of staging, histories, research, archives, appropriations, and montages. Engendered here is a shifting space of artistic presence and reification that undertakes various interventions into the regimes of meaning ascription amidst art, politics, and everyday life. In the process, art becomes political by defining its interventions as a space of common affairs, where forms of art cannot be differentiated from common experience and are thus readable as part of “reality” and also of “politics”—as a space in which the discrepancy between what we see and what we say comes to light, between what we do and what we really could be doing.

Images

Publication is permitted exclusively in the context of announcements and reviews related to the exhibition and publication. Please avoid any cropping of the images. Credits to be downloaded from the corresponding link.

Christodoulos Panayiotou, Detail aus / from: The Invention Of Antiquity, 2011. Image sourced from the Press and Information Office, Cyprus.
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Christodoulos Panayiotou, Detail aus / from: The Invention Of Antiquity, 2011. Image sourced from the Press and Information Office, Cyprus.
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Stefanie Seibold: Matt und Schlapp wie Schnee / Soft and Dull like Snow. Installationsansicht / Installation view Camera Austria 2013. Photo: Christine Winkler.
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Stefanie Seibold: Matt und Schlapp wie Schnee / Soft and Dull like Snow. Installationsansicht / Installation view Camera Austria 2013. Photo: Christine Winkler.
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Stefanie Seibold: Matt und Schlapp wie Schnee / Soft and Dull like Snow. Installationsansicht / Installation view Camera Austria 2013. Photo: Christine Winkler.
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Stefanie Seibold: Matt und Schlapp wie Schnee / Soft and Dull like Snow. Installationsansicht / Installation view Camera Austria 2013. Photo: Christine Winkler.
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Stefanie Seibold, Matt und Schlapp wie Schnee, 2011. Photo: Maria Ziegelböck.
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Stefanie Seibold, Matt und Schlapp wie Schnee, 2011. Photo: Maria Ziegelböck.
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G.R.A.M.: Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ne, Ne, Ne, Ne. Performance mit / with Lorenz Kabas und / and Helmut Köpping. Camera Austria 2012, Photo: Marlon T.L. Fink.
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G.R.A.M.: Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ne, Ne, Ne, Ne. Performance mit / with Lorenz Kabas und / and Helmut Köpping. Camera Austria 2012, Photo: Marlon T.L. Fink.
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G.R.A.M.: Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ne, Ne, Ne, Ne. Performance mit / with Lorenz Kabas und / and Helmut Köpping. Camera Austria 2012, Photo: Marlon T.L. Fink.
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G.R.A.M.: Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ne, Ne, Ne, Ne. Performance mit / with Lorenz Kabas und / and Helmut Köpping. Camera Austria 2012, Photo: Marlon T.L. Fink.
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G.R.A.M.: Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ne, Ne, Ne, Ne. Performance mit / with Lorenz Kabas und / and Helmut Köpping. Camera Austria 2012, Photo: Marlon T.L. Fink.
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G.R.A.M., Börse London (+1,89%) schloss wie die meisten in Europa im Plus / The london Stock Exchange (+1,89 Percent), like most stock markets in Europe, bounced back up, 2011.
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G.R.A.M., Börsen Panik: ein Absturz, zwei Gründe und viele Widersprüche / Stock market panic: a crash, two causes and many contradictions, 2011.
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G.R.A.M., La revolutione siamo Noi, aus der Serie / from the series: Nach Motiven von..., 2001.
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Stefan Panhans, Items for Possible Video Sets #2, 2009.
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Stefan Panhans, Items for Possible Video Sets #23, 2012.
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Stefan Panhans, Items for Possible Video Sets #5, 2010.
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Stefan Panhans, Items for Possible Video Sets #13, 2010.
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Stefan Panhans, Items for Possible Video Sets #25, 2012.
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Stefan Panhans, Items for Possible Video Sets #21, 2011.
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