Aktuelles

Leopold Museum, 13. 7. 2018 – 29. 10. 2018

In her studio, d’Ora captured the great names of the 20th century’s world of art and fashion, aristocracy and politics. The first artist photographed by her was Gustav Klimt in 1908, the last Pablo Picasso in 1956. She further immortalized Emperor Charles I of Austria and members of the Rothschild family, Coco Chanel and Josephine Baker as well as Marc Chagall and Maurice Chevalier. In 1907 Dora Kallmus was one of the first women in Vienna to open a photographic studio. Within only a few months, the Atelier d’Ora had established itself as the most elegant and renowned studio for artistic portrait photographs and her images were widely disseminated through numerous newspapers and magazines in Austria and abroad. In 1925 an offer from the fashion magazine L’Officiel brought d’Ora to Paris, which became the center of her personal and professional life. She received countless commissions from fashion- and lifestyle magazines, which only started to abate from the mid-1930s when the political situation across Europe became increasingly precarious. A disenfranchised Jew, d’Ora lost her Paris studio in 1940 and for years had to hide from German occupying forces in France. Having narrowly escaped capture, the portraitist of society focused her at once sharp and empathic gaze after 1945 also on nameless concentration camp survivors as well as on the meat stock of the Parisian abattoirs. D’Ora’s work traces a unique arc from the last Austrian monarch, via the glamour of the Paris fashion world in the 1920s and 30s to a Europe entirely changed after World War II.

The exhibition is created in cooperation with the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg as well as the Photoinstitut Bonartes in Vienna and is curated by Monika Faber and Magdalena Vukovic.

Wie gestalten sich die Lebens- und Arbeitssituationen von Kunstschaffenden und KulturvermittlerInnen in Österreich?

Liebe Künstler und Künstlerinnen, Kulturschaffende und Kunst-/KulturvermittlerInnen,

wir möchten Sie herzlich zur Teilnahme an einer Online-Befragung einladen!
Die Lebens- und Arbeitssituationen von Kunstschaffenden und Kunst-/Kulturvermittler- /innen in Österreich sind häufig durch prekäre Arbeitsverhältnisse und unsichere Einkommensperspektiven geprägt – zu diesem Ergebnis kam im Jahr 2008 eine umfassende Grundlagenstudie zur sozialen Lage der Künstler und Künstlerinnen im Auftrag des damaligen bm:ukk.
Wie hat sich die Situation im vergangenen Jahrzehnt verändert? Welche Entwicklungen haben die Arbeits- und Lebensrealitäten der Kunstschaffenden seither beeinflusst? Und mit welchen – alten oder neuen – Herausforderungen haben Künstlerinnen und Künstler heute zu kämpfen? Diesen Fragen widmet sich ein Update der Studie, die gemeinsam von L&R Sozialforschung und österreichischer kulturdokumentation im Auftrag des Bundeskanzleramts – Sektion Kunst und Kultur durchgeführt wird. Die Studie soll nicht nur den Status Quo abbilden, sondern vor allem auch Entwicklungen und daraus zu ziehende Schlüsse sichtbar machen.
Bitte beteiligen Sie sich an der Online-Befragung unter folgendem Link:

http://lrsocialresearch.limequery.com/index.php/671631/lang-de

Vielen Dank!

österreichische kulturdokumentation   
L&R Sozialforschung

Fotogalerie Wien, Vienna, 13. 3. – 14. 4. 2018

Dadaist and poet Tristan Tzara called the invention of the collage the most revolutionary moment in the development of painting and meant by that the fundamental break with established forms of artistic representation that it symbolised. Implicit to the technical processes of what comprises collage — gluing  (Fr. coller), scratching, cutting, tearing, folding, mounting, assembling and de-composing etc. is the potential for radicality. While the papiers collés of the Cubists drew their sustenance from used, discarded and apparently banal sources, we are surrounded today with multiply reproduced, re-formatted and re-edited copies of constantly accumulating digital debris. The current focus of the Fotogalerie Wien will present four exhibitions and includes a wide spectrum of methods and processes used in collage in contemporary photo and video art. This renders the narrative and autopoietic strengths of this art form visible along with its innovatory energy as one of its fundamental and most evident characteristics, especially in relation to new technologies or spatial and sculptural expansions. The drift of the images is also always guided by energies that are anarchistic, driven by chance and play.

The focus of the third show of the 2017/18 special topic consists of works which take up a specific subject area or motif and place it at the centre of a process of reflection. This makes clear how collage has the ability to render the familiar unfamiliar and so to compress reality that what is beyond depiction and representation and outside habitual ways of seeing is rendered visible. Domains are created that follow their own rules; visual constellations remain abstract while simultaneously unfolding their documentary character through their explicit references to reality, picking up the pre-existing, bearing witness. Their critical potential derives in no small way from the fact that they draw on reality in order to dissect it, to draw over and displace it. And so they show things as they never were but yet as they really are. Artistic deconstruction, the alienating appropriation of found image material and its mechanisms, lays open how images function and the ideologies that are transported through them.

With works by: Josif Kiraly, Tim Sharp, Broomberg & Chanarin, Tanja Deman, Bernhard Hosa, Petra Jansová, Stephanie Kiwitt

Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna,  7. 2. – 24. 3. 2018

The exhibition takes Siegfried Kracauer’s concept of history as its departure point in its exploration of contemporary questions on the basis of past moments. The featured works investigate specific historical constellations as well as the fundamental possibilities of recording and representing historical events. This self-reflexive inquiry into the means of representing history correlates with a historiography that is conscious of the constructive elements of facts and therefore does not provide “alternative facts”. Seen in this way, history becomes a process characterised by a temporary nature. This view corresponds with Kracauer’s scepticism towards the permanently fixed and the retrospectively founded logic of an idea. For he was far more convinced that “there are always holes in the wall for us to evade and the improbable to slip in” (Siegfried Kracauer, History – The Last Things Before The Last, 1969).

With works by: Kathi Hofer, Katrin Hornek, Dejan Kaludjerović, Tatiana Lecomte, Miklós Erhardt & Little Warsaw, Walid Raad, Vladislav Shapovalov, Slavs and Tatars, Johanna Tinzl & Stefan Flunger, UBERMORGEN

Curated by Gudrun Ratzinger

Kunstverein München, 17. Februar – 15. April 2018
Curated by Natxo Checa and Kunstverein München
17 February–15 April 2018
Open Thursday–Sunday, 5–9pm

Opening: 16 February 2018, 7–11pm
Chinese New Year’s Afterparty at Goldene Bar

From 17 February until 15 April 2018, Kunstverein München presents Lua Cão – a large-scale exhibition that tests the intersection of experimental film and video via the extensive bodies of work of Alexandre Estrela and the duo João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva. Co-organized by Natxo Checa, the exhibition spans both floors of the Kunstverein.

Lua Cão is an immersive moving-image experiment with 21 films, videos, and images, arranged in five constellations. Every fifteen minutes the exhibition changes, following a four-hour-long technical script implemented by a projectionist, who turns the equipment on and off, and can give interpretative background or answer questions.

Originally presented by Galeria Zé dos Bois in Azores and Lisbon, Lua Cão is the result of more than a decade and a half of conversation between Checa, Estrela, and Gusmão and Paiva. The title refers to a rare optical phenomenon where the moon’s light is refracted to appear in a halo with a pair of adjacent “moon dogs”. Moons, eyeballs, multiple exposures, tunnels, light rays, and atmospheric and optical illusions proliferate throughout the exhibition to emphasize the role the mechanics of vision plays in both artistic practices, and to demonstrate their shared interest in the moving image that consistently connects abstractions to illusions, the everyday to the impossible.

A new bilingual publication of “literary miniatures,” written by the artists and curators, will be available – the eleventh in the Kunstverein’s Companion series, co-published with Roma Publications, Amsterdam.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to the nature of the presentation, the exhibition will be open Thursday through Sunday from 5–9pm. The sequence begins promptly.

Statement on documenta gGmbH’s separation from Annette Kulenkampff

To the members of the board of documenta and Museum Fridericianum gGmbH:

Oberbürgermeister Christian Geselle (Vorsitzender)
Staatsminister Boris Rhein (stellv. Vorsitzender)
Staatsministerin Eva Kühne-Hörmann
Stadtverordneter Dr.Rabani Alekuzei
Stadtverordneter Marcus Leitschuh
MdL Karin Müller
Stadtverordneter Axel Selbert
Stadtverordneter Gernot Rönz
Hortensia Völckers, Vorstand der Kulturstiftung des Bundes
Alexander Farenholtz, Vorstand der Kulturstiftung des Bundes
Staatsminister Axel Wintermeyer
Staatssekretär Dr. Martin J. Worms

January 14, 2018

Through this letter we wish to express our concern that the recent considerations and decisions made by the documenta supervisory board have considerably damaged one of Germany’s internationally active and influential cultural institutions and thus also the image of Germany abroad. Local and state politicians, who form the ranks of the supervisory board in particular and are the shareholders of documenta gGmbH, haven taken a financial deficit¹ that they themselves effected as a cause to openly debate the restructuring of documenta in the direction of a pure commercialization and marketing of the documenta brand.

A first consequence of these considerations was the dissolution of the contract with Chief Executive Officer Annette Kulenkampff. No other reason can be given, as there has been no proof whatsoever of her culpability for the above-mentioned deficit, which arose through a program concept for which all involved parties shared responsibility.

Moreover, these are the same politicians who have remained unable to respond to the derailments of the right-wing party AfD, which described an artwork by Olu Oguibe as “disfigured art” (entstellte Kunst), clearly referring to fascist terminology.

The political deliberations now sparked range from a repeal of the non-profit status of documenta gGmbH to the integration of public relations work into city marketing and to a redistribution of the financial risk burden. Ultimately, this means relocating responsibility, concentrating revenues on the public purse, and at the same time minimizing freedom of the arts. The planned legal framework aims at nothing other than to align conceptual and artistic freedom with purely budgetary restrictions.

It would be absurd for anyone to doubt the benefits of an event unique on the international stage that boasts around 900,000 visitors, with its significance for the mediation of art going far beyond that of any other art venue. In this regard, it seems almost absurd that the “documenta city” of Kassel and the state of Hessen now presume to question a model of success that has grown over many decades and is already well rooted in history books, all because one single edition of the project could easily be bashed politically as it was partially held in a different European country. Ignoring the advice of all experts, the mayor and the state of Hessen have unnecessarily raised doubts about whether Kassel is still the right location for documenta.

Indeed, the idea to blame Annette Kulenkampff and the second location in Athens for the deficit of documenta 14 is patently false.² All involved parties were aware of the fact that the selection of a second site can incur additional costs. The cost risk was communicated in a timely manner. No other reason for the vehement interference by local and regional politicians can be identified than the attempt to take possession of an independent structure and, in the process, to first rid themselves of the very person, Annette Kulenkampff, who had sought to ensure, in a particularly uncomfortable way, the artistic and scholarly autonomy of documenta.

Her groundbreaking plans for the academic research into and mediation of the documenta archive, for the proper care of artworks in public space, and the contemporary renewal of documenta as a globally operating institution are counteracted by this misguided discussion. The desire of the documenta exhibitions since 1997 to offer a stage to non-Western and non-market-oriented positions and to consider this stage in conjunction with other locations is equally counteracted.

If Kassel wants to continue to see itself as a site for a documenta that is irreplaceable on the international stage, then the following requirements must be addressed:

1. The supervisory board must be enlarged by an international expert advisory board, which, in close cooperation with documenta gGmbH, will develop a forward-looking, binding catalogue of criteria for documenta.
2. The legal status as a non-profit GmbH must be maintained.
3. The progressive plans for scholarly research into and mediation of the documenta archive, for the proper care of artwork in public space, and the contemporary renewal of documenta must be continued.
4. The budget of documenta must be adapted to the requirements of a global art event with worldwide impact that is unique in its dimensions.
5. The supervisory board must offer Annette Kulenkampff a continued post since she has given documenta such a promising orientation.

¹ In fact, Christian Geselle, the former city treasurer and now mayor, didn’t seem to have any qualms, in his function as a council member, about defending a deficit for the Hessentag 2013. This was a three-day event of regional provenance, which took place in 2013 in Kassel and caused a deficit of 4.63 million euros. On this, see “Komplizierte Fest-Rechnung: Hessentag beschert in der Regel Defizit,” op-online.de, November 11, 2016, https://www.op-online.de/hessen/hessentag-beschert-regel-defizit-6969761.html.
² Such a picture becomes heavily imbalanced when one takes the added economic value of city and land into account. See “Kunst als Standortfaktor: So viel Geld spült die documenta nach Kassel,” hessenschau.de, May 11, 2017, http://www.hessenschau.de/wirtschaft/so-viel-geld-spuelt-die-documenta-nach-kassel,documenta-wirtschaft-100.html.

First signatories:

Marion Ackermann (Generaldirektorin der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden)
Silke Albrecht (Geschäftsführerin des Württembergischen Kunstvereins Stuttgart)
Lotte Arndt (Theoretikerin, Kunsthochschule Valence, Paris)
Inke Arns (Künstlerische Leiterin des Hartware MedienKunstVereins, Dortmund)
Michael Arzt (Halle 14 Leipzig, Vorstand der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine, ADKV)
Elke aus dem Moore (Leiterin Kunst, Institut für Auslandesbeziehungen, Stuttgart)
Zdenka Badovinac (Director of Moderna Galerija + Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana)
Nuit Banai (Professorin für neuste Kunstgeschichte, Wien)
Bassam El Baroni (Lecturer Dutch Art Institute, NL, and Independent Curator – Manifesta 8, 36th Eva Int. Ireland’s Biennial)
Ute Meta Bauer (Gründungsdirektorin des NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapur)
Meike Behm (Direktorin Kunsthalle Lingen, Vorstand der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine, ADKV)
Ralf Beil (Direktor des Kunstmuseums Wolfsburg)
Andreas F. Beitin (Direktor des Ludwig Forum für internationale Kunst, Aachen)
René Block (Leiter der Kunsthalle 44Moen, Askeby)
Monica Bonvicini (Künstlerin, Berlin)
Reinhard Braun (Künstlerischer Leiter, Camera Austria, Graz)
Sabeth Buchmann (Professorin für Kunstgeschichte der Moderne und Nachmoderne an der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien)
Manon Bursian (Vorstand und Stiftungsdirektorin der Kunststiftung Sachsen-Anhalt)
Binna Choi (Director of Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht)
Hans D. Christ (Direktor des Württembergischen Kunstvereins Stuttgart)
Cosmin Costinas (Executive Director / Curator of Para Site, Hong Kong)
Alice Creischer, Andreas Siekmann (Künstler_innen, Professor_innen an der Kunsthochschule Berlin Weißensee, MA Raumstrategien)
Janneke de Vries (Direktorin der GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen)
Ekaterina Degot (Intendantin des Steirischen Herbst, Graz)
Chris Dercon (Intendant der Volksbühne, Berlin)
Ulrich Domröse (Leiter der fotografischen Sammlung, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin)
Iris Dressler (Direktorin des Württembergischen Kunstvereins Stuttgart)
Katja Diefenbach (Professorin für Ästhetische Theorie an der Merz Akademie, Stuttgart)
Ines Doujak (Künstlerin, Wien)
Helmut Draxler (Professor für Kunsttheorie an der Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien)
Övül Ö. Durmusoglu (Guest Professor for Curatorial Theory and Praxis, Nuremberg Academy of Fine Arts)
Bettina von Dziembowski (Kunstverein Springhornhof)
Yilmaz Dziewior (Direktor des Museum Ludwig, Köln)
Silvia Eiblmayr (Kunsthistorikerin, Kuratorin, Wien)
Charles Esche (Director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven)
Matthias Flügge (Rektor der Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden)
Martin Fritz (Rektor der Merz Akademie Stuttgart)
Katya García-Antón (Direktorin des OCA, Office for Contemporary Art Norway)
Gerrit Gohlke (Künstlerischer Leiter des Brandenburgischen Kunstvereins Potsdam, Vorstand der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine, ADKV)
Cristina Gómez Barrio, Wolfgang Mayer / Discoteca Flaming Star (Künstler_innen, Professor_innen für Bildende Kunst und Intermediales Gestalten an der Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Stuttgart)
Søren Grammel (Leiter des Museums für Gegenwartskunst, Basel)
Ulrike Groos, Direktorin des Kunstmuseums Stuttgart
Elke Gruhn (Leiterin Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Vorstand der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine, ADKV)
Krist Gruijthuijsen (Direktor des KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin)
Jan Peter Hammer (Künstler, Berlin)
Hou Hanru (Artistic Director, MAXXI, National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome)
Annette Hans (Künstlerische Leiterin, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof)
Markus Heinzelmann (Direktor des Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen)
Fatima Hellberg (Künstlerische Leiterin des Künstlerhaus Stuttgart)
Gabriele Horn (Direktorin der Berlin Biennale)
Hans Dieter Huber (Professor für Kunstgeschichte der Gegenwart, Ästhetik und Kunsttheorie an der Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Stuttgart)
Lanna Idriss, Member of the Board of BHF Foundation
Gregor Jansen (Direktor der Kunsthalle Düsseldorf)
Jean-Baptiste Joly (Direktor der Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart)
Alice Kögel (Konservatorin für Gegenwartskunst, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart)
Alexander Kluge (Autor und Filmemacher, München)
Alexander Koch (Die Gesellschaft der Neuen Auftraggeber, KOW Galerie)
Kasper König (Kurator, u.a. künstlerischer Leiter von Skulptur.Projekte Münster 1977-2017)
Christian Kravagna (Professor für Postcolonial Studies an der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien)
Andres Kreuger (Senior Curator, M HKA, Antwerp)
Katia Krupennikova (Freischaffende Kuratorin, Amsterdam)
Elisabeth Lebovici (Art critic, Paris)
Mathias Lindner (Direktor Neue Sächsische Galerie, Neue Chemnitzer Kunsthütte, Vorstand der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine, ADKV)
Thomas Locher (Künstler, Rektor der Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig)
Dirk Luckow (Intendant Deichtorhallen Hamburg)
Mark Nash (Co-curator of Documenta 11)
Antje Majewski (Künstlerin, Professorin der Muthesius Kunsthochschule, Kiel)
Florian Malzacher (Kurator, Impulse Theater Festival 2013-17)
Nina Möntmann (Kunsttheoretikerin und Kuratorin)
Matthias Mühling (Direktor der Städtischen Galerie im Lenbachhaus, München)
Vanessa Joan Müller (Dramaturgin der Kunsthalle Wien)
Heike Munder (Direktorin des Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst Zürich)
Joanna Mytkowska (Direktorin des Museum of Modern Art Warschau)
Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (Künstlerischer Leiter von SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin)
Anh-Linh Ngo (Mitherausgeber von ARCH+)
Olaf Nicolai (Künstler, Berlin)
Ruth Noack (Kuratorin der Documenta 12, 2007)
Angelika Nollert (Direktorin Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum, München)
Hannelore Paflik-Huber (Kunstwissenschaftlerin, Vorsitzende des Künstlerhauses Stuttgart)
Peter Pakesch (Vorstandsmitglied der Maria Lassnig Privatstiftung, Wien)
Christine Peters (Kuratorin des Kunstgebäude Stuttgart, 2017)
Britta Peters (Künstlerische Leiterin von Urbane Künste Ruhr; Kuratorin der Skulptur.Projekte Münster 2017)
Philippe Pirotte (Rektor der Staatlichen Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main)
Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology & Gender Studies, Columbia University
Raqs Media Collective (Monica Narula, Jeebesh Bagchi & Shuddhabrata Sengupta, New Dehli)
Oliver Ressler (Künstler und Filmemacher, Wien)
David Riff (Schriftsteller, Kurator, Künstler, Berlin)
Walid Raad (Künstler, Professor an der Cooper Union, New York)
Kathrin Romberg (Sammlungsdirektorin Erst Bank Österreich, Wien)
Anda Rottenberg (Direktorin emeritus Zachenta National Gallery of Art, Warschau)
Rasha Salti (Independent Curator of Art & Film, Curator of La Lucarne for ArteFrance)
Hedwig Saxenhuber (springerin, Wien)
Nicolaus Schafhausen (Direktor der Kunsthalle Wien)
Georg Schöllhammer (tranzit.at, Wien)
Ursula Schöndeling (Direktorin des Heidelberger Kunstvereins, Vorstand der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine, ADKV)
Sabine Schulze (Direktorin des Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg)
Nathalie Boseul Shin (Chief curator of Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul)
Andrei Siclodi (Direktor des Künstlerhauses Büchsenhausen, Innsbruck)
Jennifer Smailes (Künstlerische Leiterin, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof)
Ruth Sonderegger (Professorin für Philosophie und ästhetische Theorie an der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien)
Björg Stefánsdóttir (Direktor des Icelandic Art Center, Reykjavik
Simon Sheikh (Programme Director, MFA Curating Department of Art Goldsmiths College, London)
Bettina Steinbrügge (Direktorin des Kunstvereins in Hamburg)
Barbara Steiner (Leiterin des Kunsthaus Graz)
Hito Steyerl (Künstlerin, Professorin für Experimentalfilm und Video an der Universität der Künste Berlin)
Wolfgang Suttner (Vorstand der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine, ADKV)
Nina Tabassomi (Direktorin des Taxispalais Kunsthalle Tirol)
Michael Taussig (Professor at Columbia University, New York)
Ana Teixeira Pinto (Autorin, Kulturtheoretikerin, Berlin)
Thomas Thiel (Direktor des Bielefelder Kunstvereins, Vorstand der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Kunstvereine, ADKV)
Haakon Thuestad (Director of the Bergen Assembly)
Wolfgang Tillmans (Künstler, Berlin, London)
Nasan Tur (Künstler, Berlin)
Wolfgang Ullrich (Freier Autor und Kunstwissenschaftler, Leipzig)
Philippe Van Cauteren (Director of S.M.A.K., Museum for Contemporary Art, Ghent)
Anton Vidokle (Artist, founder of e-flux, New York/Berlin)
Christoph Vogtherr (Direktor der Hamburger Kunsthalle)
Marianne Wagner (Kuratorin für Gegenwartskunst des Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kultur, Münster)
Joanna Warsza (Kuratorin, Public Art Munich 2018)
Peter Weibel (Vorstand und Direktor des Zentrums für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe)
Thomas Weski (Kurator der Stiftung für Fotografie und Medienkunst mit Archiv Michael Schmidt)
What, How and for Whom / WHW (Ivet Ćurlin, Ana Dević, Nataša Ilić and Sabina Sabolović)
Axel John Wieder (Direktor, Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation)
Matthias Winzen (Professor für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttheorie an der Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar, Saarbrücken)
Florian Wüst (Film- und Videokurator der Transmediale, Berlin)
Regina Wyrwoll (Kuratorin Peter und Irene Ludwig Stiftung / Findungskommission documenta X)
Misal Adnan Yildiz (Direktor des Artspace NZ in Auckland, 2014–2017)
Octavio Zaya (Director and Executive Editor of atlanticajournal.com, Cocurator of Documenta 11)
Nina Zimmer (Direktorin des Kunstmuseum Bern, Zentrum Paul Klee Bern)
Franciska Zólyom (Direktorin der GfzK, Leipzig)

Pasquart Photoforum, 28. 1. – 15. 4. 2018

In her artistic practice, Dorothée Elisa Baumann (*1972, lives and works in Biel and Geneva) provokes shifts and transfers, and thus creates visual obstacles for the spectator. These “collisions” or riddles invite us to consider and question the represented objects in a renewed social, political and cultural context.

Adrian Sauer (*1976, lives and works in Leipzig, DE) explores in his photographs the foundations of a medium which, since its beginnings, has seen changes like no other medium. When during the 1990s, analogue photography was replaced by digital processes, many critics saw in this the end of photography. Sauer’s work is a decisive manifest against such conjunctures.

Neue Galerie – Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz, 18. 1. – 22. 4. 2018

Shirin Neshat (born 1957) occupies a central role in the discourse on relations between the East and the West: her photographs and videos revolve around the situation of women in societies shaped by Islam, and the contradictions arising between western and oriental cultural traditions.

The review exhibition in the Neue Galerie Graz brings together important works from all Shirin Neshat’s creative periods. The exhibition title Frauen in Gesellschaft addresses two themes constantly recurring in the artist’s œuvre: the role of the woman in Iran, and the traumatic impact of diasporic experiences which can shape a woman for the rest of her life and in the society in which she finds herself from then on.

KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 16. 1. 2018, 7:30 pm

“For me my works are almost like what a star is to a constellation. They are points or particulates within a larger story,” says American artist Trevor Paglen in our current issue mono.kultur #44. And indeed, there are few artists whose work is as deeply embedded in current matters of concern, questioning the impact of technology, economy, military or politics on the human condition. Trevor Paglen likes talking about those larger stories, and we certainly love to listen.

So please join us for an evening of conversation between Trevor Paglen and Krist Gruijthuijsen, director of the esteemed KW Institute for Contemporary Art, discussing Paglen’s latest cycle of works and research into the hidden worlds of machine vision. For almost ten years, Paglen has been studying computer recognition programs and how machines are learning to ‘see’, and how these developments interact with our daily lives. His research has led to a new body of what he calls ‘invisible images’, generated entirely by Artifical Intelligence systems—but of course, those are only particulates within a larger story.

Tanya Leighton, Berlin, 11. 1. – 17. 2. 2018

Tanya Leighton is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Berlin of Marianne Wex’s pioneering project about male and female body language, “Let’s Take Back Our Space: ‘Female’ and ‘Male’ Body Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures” (1977). The encyclopedic, multi-panel installation was first shown 40 years ago in a group exhibition about women’s art at the neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin. Widely celebrated at the time of its debut, Wex’s provocative image of all-pervasive everyday patriarchy now seems more acutely relevant than ever.

Originally a painter, inspired by both the figuration of Paula Modersohn-Becker and pop art, Wex’s research into body language led her gradually towards photography. Several years of gathering images in the streets of Hamburg in the mid-1970s produced a collection of more than 5,000, which Wex supplemented with images rephotographed from art history catalogues as well as mass media; photojournalism, advertisements, pornography, mail order catalogue clippings, and publicity shots. From this enormous image bank, Wex constructed “Let’s Take Back Our Space”, a speculative and polemical history of body language and physiology, extending backwards from the present to ancient Egypt.

Wex’s project takes the form of hundreds of collages, of different widths but uniform height, organised into separate male and female panels and displayed in parallel rows. These are rigorously subdivided according to different postures and poses, revealing how gender stereotypes percolate down to our most intimate everyday gestures. The occasional ‘exceptions’—figures whose photos float above or below the rows—only serve to emphasise the incredible conformity discovered by Wex, from the street to the boardroom. Again and again, power differentials can be observed simply in the amount of space people feel entitled to occupy—‘manspreading’ avant la lettre.

Speaking about her work, Wex notes that her endeavor was “based on the assumption that body language is the result of sex-oriented, patriarchal socialization, affecting all of our ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ role behavior.” Her discovery was that “body language and bodily ideals between sexes have become increasingly divergent.”

The resulting body of photographic collages is unique: they combine the history of street photography and the typologies of the Becher School with conceptual art imperatives, especially in their possibilities for modular recombination. “Let’s Take Back Our Space” might be classified, non-exhaustively, as a feminist broadside, an encyclopedia of gesture, an ethnographic portrait of Hamburg in the 1970s, a genealogical tract on art history, a neglected classic of appropriation art and a kind of autobiography.

Marianne Wex was born in 1937 in Hamburg, Germany. She studied at the Academies of Art in Hamburg and Mexico City, and was a professor at the Academy of Art, Hamburg from 1963 to 1980. “Let’s Take Back Our Space” was first shown as part of “Women Artists International 1877–1977” at nGbK, Berlin. Wex’s work was shown for the first time in decades at Focal Point Gallery, Southend in 2009 and then in a more comprehensive form at the Badischer Kunstverein, Kalsruhe in 2012. Other recent exhibitions include Galeria Zachęta, National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland; Adam Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand; Gasworks, London; La Galerie – centre dʼart contemporain, Noisy-le-Sec, Paris; and Yale Union, Portland, United States.

The exhibition has been developed in collaboration with Mike Sperlinger, Professor of Theory and Writing at the National Academy of the Arts, Oslo.

The program drawn up by the new Austrian coalition government quotes the Secession’s motto, “To every time its art. To art its freedom.” As the board of the Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession, we would like to use this opportunity to spell out our understanding of the freedom of the arts:

Ever since our artists’ association was founded one hundred and twenty years ago, we have sought to live up to our motto, which affirms our faith in continual renewal, diversity, and openness and is incompatible with any political interference with the contents of art and its forms of expression.

Freedom of the arts is necessarily premised on internationality, pluralism, and dialogue. The notion that art’s purpose is to buttress a national collective identity presses it into a service that runs counter to its thematic diversity. We are persuaded that it is only in the horizon of this freedom that art can attain relevance and quality.

The freedom our motto demands extends far beyond the individual creative articulation: the exchange of ideas in a larger, pluralistic, international context is what endows the individual voices with cultural significance. That is why culture cannot be reduced to art objects or musical compositions. Nor can it be assessed on the quantitative scales of visitor figures, market values, or the circulation of works. An open society is the air that art needs to breathe.

When a government does not champion a free society, its promise to respect the freedom of the arts is no more than a rhetorical exercise.

The board of the Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession

Vienna, December 20, 2017

The 100th issue of EIKON was conceived as a comprehensive special issue covering the Europe-wide EIKON Award (45+). Placed under the patronage of VALIE EXPORT, it addresses photography and media artists aged 45 or older. Women have frequently been pioneers of photography and media art, exploring the innovative potential of new media and technologies with artistic means. This special edition unveils current conditions for female art production and presents selected works by related female artists. The issue will be presented at once with the winner ceremony of the EIKON Award (45+) at Vienna Art Week 2017.

Launch EIKON #100, ceremony EIKON Award (45+)
When: November 17, 2017 at 6pm
Where: KUNST HAUS WIEN, Untere Weißgerberstraße 13, 1030 Vienna

21er Haus, Vienna, 15. 11. 2017 – 11. 02. 2018

Eva Koťátková (born 1982 in Prague), the evolution of the self is a tightrope walk between internal and external pressures. Featuring a multitude of objects generating an expansive installation, her exhibition on the lower level of the 21er Haus revolves around the film “Stomach of the World” (2017), which forms the fulcrum of this thought.

“Stomach of the World” has a running time of 46 minutes and is exhibited in a loop. In this surreal yet humorous film, the world is experienced from the perspective of children performing a sequence of exercises. The young actors imagine the world as a body that ingests objects and subjects and transforms them. Koťátková drafts the notion of a world as a stomach filled with stomachs and with what they engulf; the world like a snake in whose belly stockpiles another snake. It’s all about the politics of eating or being eaten.

Curated by Severin Dünser

Fotogalleriet, Oslo, 03. 11. – 17. 12. 2017

Berlinische Galerie, Berlin, 03. 11. 2017 – 30. 04. 2018

Cyrill Lachauer (born 1979 in Rosenheim) is a reader of tracks. His works derive from lengthy journeys around United States backcountry, so much in the public eye of late, and back to his own roots in Upper Bavaria and Berlin. The gaps, quotations and seemingly incidental details in his photographs, films and writings are clues to hidden stories inscribed within landscapes as enduring traces.

“What Do You Want Here” is the first exhibition of a cycle produced on the road in the United States over the last two years. The linchpin is his film “Dodging Raindrops – A Separate Reality”. It begins in Los Angeles and reconstructs field research trips allegedly undertaken by the controversial ethnologist Carlos Castaneda, who went on to found the New Age movement. The film is complemented by photographs and texts. Observations recorded along the Mississippi combine with fictional situations and historical references to create a multiple-voice narrative, offering a broader perception of the landscapes along the route.

Cyrill Lachauer studied directing, ethnology and art in Munich and Berlin. He completed his studies at Berlin’s University of the Arts in 2010. In 2011, he founded the artists’ label Flipping the Coin, which he runs together with three colleagues. Distinctions include the 3sat Young Talent Award at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen in 2008, the IBB Photography Award in 2010, a Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung fellowship in 2014, and a Villa Aurora grant in Los Angeles in 2015.

Department Storage/Study Room/Exhibition Gallery and exhibition “Jochen Lempert / Peter Piller Reconsidering Photography: Birds”

26 October 2017

exhibition runtime: 27 October 2017 to 4 February 2018

On 26 October 2017, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MKG) will reopen its Photography and New Media
Department. This marks the conclusion of the first phase of the extensive renovations made possible by a grant of
600,000 euros from the Hermann Reemtsma Foundation within the framework of the initiative Kunst auf Lager. MKG
owns one of Germany’s foremost collections of photography, comprising some 75,000 works spanning the entire history
of photography from its invention to the present day. At around 120 square meters, the storage area has been expanded
substantially. This means that the museum finally has the necessary space and facilities for proper storage and optimal
climatic conditions for its precious holdings. In a study room adjoining the storage area, staff and registered guests can
now examine and work with the original photographs. A new, centrally located 140-square-meter exhibition gallery will
let MKG present its photographic collection in dialogue with contemporary themes and authors. Kicking off the series are
photographers Jochen Lempert and Peter Piller with the exhibition Reconsidering Photography: Birds, whose opening
will coincide with the reopening of the collection on 26 October 2017. Including the grant from the Hermann Reemtsma
Foundation, MKG has been able to raise a total of one million euros to safeguard the future of the Photography and New
Media Department. The funds were contributed by various sponsors for the restoration and framing of the historical
photographs, for the scholarly study of the collection, for the survey show ReVision in 2016, for a collection catalogue,
and for work on MKG Sammlung Online, where 9,000 works are already available in digital form.

Prof. Dr. Sabine Schulze, Director of MKG: “Thanks to the museum’s progressive collection activities and its great
openness to contemporary art since its inception, MKG houses today unique testaments to the history of photography. I
am grateful for the generous support of the Hermann Reemtsma Foundation, which helps us to preserve these precious
holdings for subsequent generations. The new study room is a particularly useful addition, substantially improving the
accessibility of the collection and thus the opportunities for scholarly research. And the permanent exhibition gallery we
now have available to us will give the splendid Photography and New Media Department a stronger presence as visitors
make their way through MKG.”

Dr. Sebastian Giesen, Managing Director of the Hermann Reemtsma Foundation: “The two museum fathers
Justus Brinckmann (MKG) and Alfred Lichtwark (Kunsthalle) shared a fondness for photography. MKG reflects the
passion of these two photographic pioneers in its collection. After the foundation was laid circa 1900, the following
decades saw the growth of one of the leading photography collections in Germany. Thanks to the long-term storage that
has now been established, the in-depth study of the holdings, their scholarly discussion and especially the improved
accessibility, we are now becoming aware for the first time of the full scope of this unique treasure trove. A wonderful
project for the Kunst auf Lager alliance. Thank you, MKG, for this marvelous opportunity!”

MKG was the first museum in Germany to begin toward the end of the 19th century to acquire photography as an
independent medium, presenting it in exhibitions starting in 1911. The museum thus played a pioneering role in this
field. Since those early years, the holdings have grown in quality and scope to comprise a unique assortment of
photographs, including an unrivaled collection of daguerreotypes as well as the Juhl Collection of gum bichromate prints
from the era of Pictorialism still in their original frames. From the 1950s onward, MKG acquired key examples of classical
modernism, among them works by Erich Andres, Herbert Bayer, Willi Beutler, Alfred Ehrhardt, Hugo Erfurth, Andreas
Feininger, Heinz Hajek-Halke, Walter Hege, Fritz Henle, Lotte Jacobi, Peter Keetmann, Erna Lenvai-Dircksen, Helmar
Lerski, Madame d’Ora, Albert Renger-Patzsch, August Sander, Franz Schensky, Otto Steinert, Alfred Tritschler, Edward
Weston, and Paul Wolff.

In early 2014, fourteen partners (primarily foundations) joined forces to form the nationwide initiative Kunst auf Lager.
Bündnis zur Erschließung und Sicherung von Museumsdepots, with the aim of supporting museums in preserving and
researching their valuable cultural assets. In a unique pilot project initiated by this group, the Hermann Reemtsma
Foundation, the Kulturstiftung der Länder, the Wüstenrot Foundation, and the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius
are working together to ensure the lasting conservation of the endangered photographic collection of MKG. In addition to
setting up new storage facilities, a study room, and an exhibition gallery, the measures also include restoring selected
historical core holdings and the step-by-step scholarly investigation of the extensive collection with the aim of providing
better public accessibility. For further information on the alliance, see www.kunst-auf-lager.de.

The Hermann Reemtsma Foundation financed the new storage facilities, study room, and exhibition gallery. The
objects are still located in different parts of the building, on crowded shelves and in drawers in largely non-climatecontrolled
storage areas. In order to store the exhibits professionally and under optimal conservation conditions, the new
storage area was renovated and equipped with the necessary furnishings and climate control systems. Now the objects
can be moved to their new home. In the future, the photographs will be stored at a constant temperature of 18 degrees
and 40 percent humidity. The study room enables employees of MKG, visitors, and professionals to view the original
objects for research purposes independent of exhibitions. The provision of a central exhibition gallery on the second floor
offers the opportunity to present the holdings in the Photography and New Media Department in changing shows that
address current issues.

The construction measures were flanked by two restoration projects. The Kulturstiftung der Länder (Cultural
Foundation of the German States) sponsored the restoration of 280 daguerreotypes from the 1840s and 50s in the MKG
collection. These early photographs were affected by “glass disease,” a process of decay in which copper carbonate leaches
out and clouds the glass plates. Besides detracting from the brilliance of the objects, the disease threatened to spread
from the glass to the framed photographs. Now that the plates have been cleaned and the glass replaced, this large group
of objects of exceptional value can be moved to the new storage rooms.

The funds provided by the Wüstenrot Foundation are being used mainly to restore a premier collection of 35 original
framed gum bichromate art photography prints dating from around 1900 that MKG acquired from the Juhl Collection in
1916/17. The restoration included the historical frames and in some cases also the conservation of loose layers of paint.
The wooden rear panels, whose emissions endanger the gum bichromate prints, were replaced as well.
To enable scholarly research into the collection, the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius is sponsoring a
research assistant until 2018. This has made it possible to publish more than 9,000 important works on MKG Sammlung
Online. MKG is thus the first museum in Germany to make its photographic collection available online. Since lightsensitive
photographic works must for the most part be stored in the dark, it is all the more important to make the
holdings available for research on the internet.

In the new exhibition series Reconsidering Photography, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MKG) invites
contemporary photographers to relate their own work to examples from the Photography and New Media Collection.
Kicking off the series are Jochen Lempert (b. 1958) and Peter Piller (b. 1968), two photographers whose methods could
hardly be more different. Lempert’s motifs from everyday nature and culture meet up with images of unintentional origin
contributed by Piller. In Reconsidering Photography: Birds, Lempert and Piller collaborate as artists and curators.
Drawing on the photographic collection of MKG as a resource, they have compiled from the historical material a selection
of bird pictures that they combine with their own photographs. On view from 27 October 2017, the exhibition features
around 100 exhibits. Birds are a recurring motif in Jochen Lempert’s work, and for the show at MKG he has arranged his
motion studies and observations of birds in a new room installation. Peter Piller has worked to date primarily with found
images, which he subjects to shifts in meaning. In his new series behind time (2017), which debuts at MKG, he himself
takes camera in hand to deliberately capture moments when a bird cannot be optimally seen and which would be
considered a failure in wildlife photography.

Jochen Lempert presents works in which birds are the central theme. Anschütz (2005) takes its title from Ottomar
Anschütz, who conducted motion studies of storks in flight. For Ptaki-Birds (1997–2005), Lempert photographed stuffed
birds displayed in natural history museums in profile, thus establishing new kinship relationships. Lempert studied biology
and pursues the tensions between culture and nature. Since the early 1990s, he has been investigating the ties between
photography and biology. He calls into question the objectivity of photography as a documentary medium and at the same
time underlines the poetry of scientific terminology with his image titles. His photographs appear random and incidental,
featuring creatures we often overlook: snails, aphids, fireflies, or the city pigeon Martha (2002). Lempert’s black-andwhite
photographs bear the traces of the unintended. He makes the materiality of his works palpable by installing them
unframed on the wall.

Peter Piller’s high-resolution C-prints by contrast seem like a testament to the technical possibilities of photography. Bird
watching was already a hobby in his youth, and now he has outfitted himself with high-tech equipment with which he lays
in wait for his feathered subjects. The waiting and boredom are a constitutive part of the artistic process. In behind time
(2017), Piller captures in this way moments that a wildlife photographer would describe as ‘too late’: the moment when the
bird flies away and all hopes of a sharp, detailed image are dashed. Piller has worked thus far mainly with found images,
which he arranges together in new ways to produce shifts in meaning, for example in the series In Löcher blicken, in which
men stare into holes in the ground. As a collector of imagery, Piller is intrigued by the myriad possibilities and associations
that can be evoked by a picture – whether in constellation with others or as the one crucial photographic moment.

What the two photographers share is their penchant for a new and creative combinationing of images into new
compositions that convey meanings that are more than the sum of the individual parts. While Lempert associatively groups
his pictures, combining them in different ways and thus encouraging comparisons, Piller appropriates existing material
and arranges it as a tableau or series.

The selection made by the artists gives only an inkling of the almost infinite possibilities of the archive. In the presentation,
a table uses bird pictures to give viewers an idea of the some 75,000 photographs in the MKG collection. The works chosen
by Lempert and Piller range in date from the turn of the last century to the 1960s. Photos of a Manchurian crane, a wattled
crane, an eagle owl, and a tawny owl originated in the Hamburg studio of J. Hamann. Taken circa 1905, the colorized
photographs show stuffed birds displayed in dioramas. Walter Hege’s bird images were featured in 1933 in the Nazi
publication Deutsche Raubvögel (German Birds of Prey). Hege also produced a number of bird documentaries, for example
Am Horst der wilden Adler (Aerie of the Wild Eagle, 1932) and Uhu als Jagdhilfe (The Eagle Owl as Hunting Companion,
1934), from which he extracted photographic stills. Karl Stülcken in turn published his photos in scientific photo series for
scholarly publications, and his photos became known to the general public through his book Der kleine Vogel Greif (The
Little Raptor,1958).

Photographs: The exhibition shows recent works by Jochen Lempert and Peter Piller as well as historical photographs by
Harold Egerton, Johann H. W. Hamann, Walter Hege, Karl Stülcken, Hedda Walther, and others.
The exhibition accompanies the inauguration of new facilities for the Photography and New Media Department, made
possible by the Hermann Reemtsma Foundation within the framework of the Kunst auf Lager alliance. In addition to new
climate-controlled storage and a study room, an exhibition area has now been created for the regular presentation of the
photographic department. The exhibition on the subject of Birds curated by Jochen Lempert and Peter Piller is the first in
the new series Reconsidering Photography.

Artist talk
10 December 2017, 3 pm, with Jochen Lempert and Peter Piller

Curator-guided tours
7 December 2017, 7 pm, Dr. Esther Ruelfs, Head of the Photography and New Media Department
21 January 2018, 3 pm, Dr. Cathrin Hauswald, Photography and New Media Department