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December 3 - 10
Rauminhalt: rückgratlos
Everything but spineless stools
No matter if it is used as a sitting or standing aid, a stepladder, a laundry storage space, a side table, a head rest or foot rest, a stool seems to be predestined for many different functions. Rauminhalt shows a variety of 20th century stools and it is surprising how many artists resort to archaic forms such as a African ceremonial stools or ancient Egyptian Pharaoh seats, among them Adolf Loos and Josef Frank. Their versions of the archetype "Thebes stool" are exhibited alongside Achille Castiglionie`s legendary tractor seat interpretation "Mezzadro" or Marcel Breuer`s Thonet-steel tube specimen. The "spineless" (rückgratlos) exhibit also offers numerous of these seats for sale, while just as many are on display from Johannes Spalt and Luigi Blau`s collection; those, of course, are not for sale.
It is amazing how many different types of symbolic stools, ranging from the highest - as seen with African rulers - to the lowest - the seating order at the French court during absolutism, were produced. However, still leaving play for Max Bill`s minimalist view (even if his legendary Ulmer-stool is missing), Breuer`s glamour of reduction, and Thonet`s simple practicability as well as many variations of outdoor-foldable stools, which are all extremely well thought-out.
While all of the displayed stools are everything but "spineless", as the title of the exhibit suggests, this could perhaps only be attributed to some of its users, who might be lacking a sturdy backbone.
(1040 Wien, Schleifmühlgasse 13, until 15. 12. 2007)
www.rauminhalt.com
Technisches Museum: Chromjuwelen - Autos mit Geschichte
100 years of fast toys
For some people cars are simply useful everyday-objects, for others they are status symbols, and in some cases they can be the main purpose in life. The remarkable cars shown at the exhibit "Chrome-jewels - automobiles with history" - have the power to awaken childhood dreams and are most pleasing to the eye. Driving is simply a "fun" thing to do - for females and males alike.
More than three-dozen automobiles, some of which have made history and others who are at least part of it, are on display. Among them the Mercedes-Benz W196 Silver Arrow (Silberpfeil), the Bentley S2, the Kaiman MK IV or the red Porsche 911 Carrera RS. The chrome jewels are shown in three groups: international racing cars, state coaches and celebrities` cars, as well as designer models.
Even austere environmentalists, passionate amblers, and fervent non-drivers will enjoy the exhibit - every automobile has its own story to tell.
(1140 Wien, Mariahilferstrasse 212, until 02. 03. 2008)
www.tmw.ac.at
Albertina: Aby Warburg. Der Bilderatlas Mnemosyne
Art historic continental drift
It seemed as if these types of exhibitions would never again be possible in the Albertina. What is currently being shown in the Studiensaal, now open to the public for the first time is exceptional in many ways. Aby Warburg`s "Mnemosyne-Atlas" is neither large nor colourful, neither glamorous nor well known. A stampede of visitors is unlikely, there was practically no advertising for this exhibit and it will only be on for a short while.
Never mind. Gerhard Fischer, who humbly calls himself the "Johann Sebastian Bach of the Viennese exhibit world", and his association "daedalus", reconstructed Warburg`s "Picture Atlas Mnemosyne" with photos and text. The 63 boards, holding a collection of 1180 photos, were bestowed to the Albertina in 2000. In 1924 Warburg, the inventor of Iconography, started to thematically group pictures dating back to the ancient world. While some tableaux are solely dedicated to Italian or German art, Warburg also created boards juxtaposing images from different eras and places arranged as comparisons. And all this despite Heinrich Wölfflin and his "Principles of Art History" which attempted to draw a clear line between North and South! Warburg demonstrated that compositions and form already existing in the ancient world were being used in advertisements and press-photos; and he included non-European art history in his findings. He might not have been the first one to compare pictures across continents, however, his work strikingly reminds of the much invoked but unfortunately so antediluvian "migration of styles" at the documenta XII. On account of Warburg`s death in 1929 his atlas was never finalized, but the exhibit gives a clear picture of what he intended. It is as if one could watch him think - simply fascinating.
(1010 Wien, Albertinaplatz 1, until 14. December 2007)
www.albertina.at
Kunstverein in Hamburg: Gesellschaftsbilder - Zeitgenössische Malerei
Jonathan Meese is not a realist
One can gain from art - Especially those who deal with art, those who mainly see it as beautiful merchandise. The Hamburg Kunstverein tried to uncover if art, over and above its decorative function, can avouch for the true and the good and if it`s epistemological and moral values count, and might even result into an intellectual gain. Contemporary art, according to its own evaluation "the media most corrupted by the market", is used to prove this. The curator and director of the Kunstverein, Yilmaz Dziewior, chose the absolutely antiquated genre of Gesellschaftsbilder (society views) for this exhibit. In this genre the concept of society is so broad that it practically includes everything, Dziewior said in an interview. Jacques Rancière was called upon as the intellectual patron saint of the exhibit; probably because he is considered to be the emperor of discourse, incessantly finds connections between politics and aesthetics and as such is asked to participate at practically every event.
Arbitrariness is the result of this extreme freedom of choice, be it the chosen installation, mural, collage or canvas painting or the subject. But these social phenomenons oftentimes get lost in their own vagueness (Minerva Cuevas shows a pill, produced by a German chemical corporation, roll across a poppy-seed pasture threatened by a huge poison-syringe. This is Cuevas` striking mural in which she tries to pinpoint the failures of the Mexican government in their fight against drug dealers). Or they try to feel out the shallows of banality (Gunter Reski goes into great detail explaining that sun glasses are becoming larger in the last years).
As a traditionalist one would have to evaluate these elusions into shallow ground as a kind of desertion. Attempts are no longer made to overcome contradictions but the objects are being "negotiated". This must be taken as kind of capitulation and the attempt to make one`s own separate peace. But one cannot blame them and honestly, who expects a revolutionary impulse from art, except from Jonathan Meese? Even though the reality, which should be transformed, is increasingly missing and dissolves into the illusiveness created by the media. Another reason why some of the artists turn to their own form of communication (Gunter Reski, Eberhard Havekost) and are much more involved with themselves and their own work than with social realities. But all this could be seen as a confirmation for the present-day mindset.
(20095 Hamburg, Klosterwall 23, until 30. 12. 2007)
www.kunstverein.at
