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English summary curated by_vienna 09
Reviews by: Nina Schedlmayer
curated by_Jerome Sans: From Europe to Asia and back, again. Living in a suitcase
Away from Eurocentrism
If you have no other reason to wander through Vienna’s city centre, it is worth doing so to view the exhibit “From Europe to Asia and back, again. Living in a suitcase”. The exhibit is shown in five galleries, located in downtown venues ranging from Dorotheergasse to the Dominikanerbastei. Jerome Sans, who is well known in the art scene as the co-founder of the Palais Tokyo in Paris, curated the show
Five galleries, five artists – the principle is simple. At first sight it may seem as if the five artists do not have much in common. “But they have one thing in common: they create art without discernible or visual limits”, the curator points out. “Their art has no beginning and no end, similar to happenings, performances, or interactive dialogues among artists and their audience. Their “boundlessness” is expressed through their turning away from Eurocentrism (despite globalization), not only with respect to the origin of the artists, but also of their works. Such as Francisco Valdès (Lukas Feichtner), who photographed Persian carpets and stacked the laminated replicas on a pile. Or Barthélémy Toguo, who presents an – even if somewhat exaggerated – installation on the topic AIDS and the Church in Africa (Mario Mauroner Contemporary Art Vienna). And Hani Rashed’s repainting of staged photographs published in fashion and design magazines –whitewashing the skin with acryl and thereby anonymizing those depicted (Gallery Ernst Hilger).
One could argue that Jerome Sans did not make a homogenous choice, and maybe the individual positions tend to separate more than they unite. Despite his curative arbitrariness, Sans articulates a standpoint. And the fact that he also presents works by a European artist - namely Jan Lauwers (Galerie Bleich-rossi) speaks in his favour.
Galerie Bleich-Rossi
Charim Galerie
Lukas Feichtner Galerie
Galerie Ernst Hilger
Mario Mauroner Contemporary Art Vienna
curated by_Maria de Corral / Dan Cameron: Inside Job
Fall out
The intention of María de Corral’s and Dan Cameron’s exhibit “Inside Job” is not easily comprehensible. Divided among four galleries in the vicinity of Vienna’s Seilerstätte, the works of artists are juxtaposed by twos – one artist who is represented by the gallery, and one who isn’t. In their press release, de Corral and Cameron point out “that the curators did not come up with this concept, nor did they choose the venues”. Thereby they “themselves have become intermediaries, whose scope is constrained on account of the relatively narrow, predefined context”.
However, the context turns out to be far less narrow. What other explanation is there why those artists, invited by the respective galleries and who are represented them, rarely have anything to do with the gallery: Hans Op de Beeck’s gloomy romantic animated film and Shilpa Gupta’s singing microphones that wander up the ceiling and then fall down, are shown at the Galerie Krinzinger. And Karina Nimmerfall, who combines the replica of luxurious architecture with an animated film, and Waltercio Caldas’, who constructs reliefs and lets threads hang from the ceiling (Galerie Grita Insam) and in the Galerie Nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Karin Sander’s html-code which transformed the gallery space, clashes with Ignasi Aballi’s photographs of paintings and their reflections on museum floors. Merely the works shown at the Layr Wüstenhagen gallery, where de Corral and Cameron combined the creations of devastation-sculptor-performer Koki Tanka with those of globetrotter mahony, seem to go well together, as they have similar sculptural approaches.
But one could argue that artistic positions do not always have to be congeneric to enlighten or to charge one another – one can also profit from extreme differences. But in this case there is not much left.
Galerie Grita Insam
Galerie Krinzinger
Galerie nächst St. Stephan
layr:wuestenhagen contemporary
curated by_Matthew Higgs: Correspondences
In dialogue
The concept of the director of the New York-based White Columns, Matthew Higgs, may not seem very original at first sight: juxtaposing two art positions for the “curated by” series. But the way he laid them out, arranged them, orchestrated them at the galleries in Vienna’s Eschenbachstrasse is convincing. For the large part.
It is good that Higgs chose a corresponding rather than an opposing approach for his exhibition “Correspondences”, which spans across five galleries. The collage-like and seemingly surrealistic (bad)-dream worlds by Rita Ackermann fit well to the monstrous, even if formally reduced photomontages of Hollywood stars, created by John Stezaker, which he already created in the 1970s (Meyer Kainer). The tectonically strict as well as delicate assemblages, created by B. Wurtz with particles of plastic bags, small twigs, shoelaces, and wooden boards, corresponds well with Noam Rappaport’s area floor plans (Galerie Steinek). And the combination of works, in which the Becher-student and now gallery owner, Janice Guy, photographs her nude reflection mirrored in shop windows in the night and the coarsely grated photos by Anne Collier, depicting women with cameras, is very effective. (Galerie Mezzanin).
But it becomes a bit more difficult when you cross the street: the smallest common denominator between Jan Groover’s photos (still life arrangements of plants and cutlery, in which the environment is reflected) and Eileen Quinlan’s works (mirrors set up at an angle, conveying an abstract effect on account of their colourful lighting) seem rather arbitrary (Krobath); and the naïve and mysterious paintings by Christopher Knowles are juxtaposed with Karl Holmquist’s not very amusing wall scribbling at the Galerie Martin Janda – however, not really entering into a dialogue.
Nevertheless, Higgs’ concept is successful. By allowing art to correspond on different levels he presents nothing less than their complexity.
Galerie Krobath
Galerie Meyer Kainer
Galerie mezzanin
Galerie Martin Janda Raum aktueller Kunst
Galerie Steinek
curated by_Gianni Jetzer. Beginnings, Middles, and Ends
Arbitrary fragments
The written picture placed at the beginning of the exhibition “Beginnings, Middles, and Ends”, curated by Gianni Jetzer (director of the Swiss Institute in New York) is no coincidence, – especially if one starts the group show of the four galleries in Vienna’s Schleifmühlgasse with the Galerie Georg Kargl. “Once there was a little boy / And everything turned out alright. THE END” Louis Lawler writes.
The exhibit assumes that artists employ “narrative structures” without “narrating entire stories”. Thereby the curator – according to the press release - presents works, which “although they are only insinuations they are able to point to a non-existent entity”. It therefore seems natural to begin this endeavour with something in writing. But there are also other “Ends” – for example on Luke Butler’s post cards (Georg Kargl Fine Arts) or in E.A. Poe’s various texts, extracted from books and glued onto white paper by Kris Martin (Engholm Engelhorn Galerie).
More often the “Middles” appear on the scene – obviously, because it is much easier to find something in the category ‘simple and moving’– either in Guido Van der Werve’s remarkable film, in which an artist is chased by an icebreaker, or in the, by the way really dull, text fragments by Gedi Sibony (Gabriele Senn Galerie) or in Ján Mancuska’s beautiful installation, in which he wrote a short story on tableware (Engholm Engelhorn).
The bracket, which Gianni Jetzer spans around his selection, seems to be too large to offer meaningful cognitions: ever since the historic avant-garde, the method of fragmentation is far too widespread. It would have been more exciting to concentrate on the “Beginnings” and “Ends”. Now the outcome is only an arbitrary choice of art, divided up among the four galleries.
engholm engelhorn galerie
Georg Kargl Fine Arts
Christine König Galerie
Gabriele Senn Galerie
All exhibitions run until June 6 2009
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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