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Enslish summaries November 14 - 27
Museum für Neue Kunst ZKM
The Global Contemporary, Art worlds after 1989
17.09.11 – 05.02.12
What is global in contemporary art?
And how does globalisation influence the functional system of art worldwide? The art worlds mentioned in the subtitle already existed before 1989 – but the end of the Cold War respectively the fall of the Iron Curtain pushed Europe, the focus of its perception, and the market opportunities over established borders.
On the one hand, the exhibition’s contextualisation in the Room of Histories with its fixed gaze on 1989 appears somewhat anxious, but on the other hand this focus offers the most exciting aspect: the art world is embedded into geopolitical developments, the interaction between the world of finance and that of art is documented, a map of Biennials proves its international proliferation into the former “periphery” and, ultimately, the changing functions of museums are being dealt with. The exhibition includes contemporary positions from all continents.
What is global in contemporary art? This becomes apparent through various aspects: the art market and its brand developments, the continuous networking of all players, dealing with the topic of in-/-visibility of non-European artwork and, last but not least, the search for new terms. Time will show if – under these ever-changing conditions - the concept of art itself will be globalized, as if globalisation could develop an aesthetically normative effect.
By Alice Schmatzberger
Museum für Neue Kunst ZKM
76135 Karlsruhe, Lorenzstrasse 9
www.mnk.zkm.de
Charim Galerie
Edgar Honetschläger
15.11.11 – 21.01.12
Of artistic pitfalls
Edgar Honetschläger, born 1963, has been living in Japan for many years and concentrates on Japanese culture in his work (paintings, film, music). The gallery is currently presenting large-format canvases, e.g. rudimentary sketches of a “Shinto priest procession”. What is barely visible to start with practically disappears on the white background. Priests standing in a row only take up a minimal amount of space on the canvas and are dominated by the colour white surrounding them, and a sea of white also dominates a group of trees centred on a hill.
Honetschläger argues that the emptiness in his paintings refers to the two-dimensionality of Japanese painting omitting the conventional three-dimensionality of European art. And he believes that Asian art creates space through omission. Yet these works leave the impression that an artist is taking things too easy. He seems to imitate Japanese forms of art without breathing life into them. And one questions why these small works need formats of 135 x 290 meters.
Honetschläger is definitely more credible with his four-minute video-loop titled “When will we allow ourselves to cry about earth”. The video shows underwater images, hands intertwined, faces decorated by a kind of tattoo and trickling sand, ultimately replaced by trickling dots on the monitor. The protagonist’s face loses itself in thousands of dots. All this is accompanied by grinding noises, authentically accentuating the Fukushima tragedy. This is clearly Honetschläger’s strongest metier.
By Susanne Rohringer
CharimGalerie
1010 Vienna, Dorotheergasse 12
Tel: +43 1 512 09 15
Fax: +43 1 512 09 15 – 50
www.charimgalerie.at
Opening hours: Tue – Fri 11 – 18 hours, Sat 11 – 14 hours
Kunsthistorisches Museum
Winter Tales – Depictions of Winter in European Art from Brueghel to Beuys
18.10.11 – 08.01.12
Snow and Space
Who has ever seen a wolf with a halo? You can do so until January 8, 2012 in the large “Winter Tale” exhibition in the Art History Museum (KHM). In Luc-Olivier’s painting The Wolf of Agubbio (1877), the animal is offered a big piece of meat by a butcher while a child is stroking its back. According to a legend, Franz of Assisi was able to tame the wolf that had until then threatened to attack the town. Merson painted the snow on the streets of Agubbio and snow is depicted on many other works.
According to a legend, artists and art dealers could charge more for snow paintings – with a frostbite surcharge so to say. And according to another legend, winter is the greatest artist because it covers everything beneath a layer of white colour (snow) within a very short time. Dutch masters to Impressionists offered a wealth of snow-covered landscapes – from Franz von Stuck, Jan Asseljin, Brueghel, to Claude Monet, and each conveyed a different presence of snow.
The exhibition, curated by Ronald de Leeuw, presents more than 180 works and is well worth seeing.
By Gesche Heumann
Kunsthistorisches Museum
1010 Vienna, Burgring 5
www.khm.at
Opening hours: Tue – Sun 9 – 18 hours
Sofia City Art Gallery
Contact Sofia
22.10.11 – 27.11.11
Cultural desert with international supplies
Regarding its cultural production, Sofia’s infrastructure does not meet the expectations of today’s Bulgarian art scene. Similar to other southern- and eastern European countries all activities are dependent on the initiative of artists and curators who operate cultural projects with the help of international sponsors. The Institute of Contemporary Art Sofia (ICA), is an important platform for Bulgarian and international artists, which, under the leadership of Iara Bobnova, offers critical insight into official cultural policies.
The Sofia Arsenal Museum of Contemporary Art (Samca), which opened its gates in June, does not live up to its name - visitors are disappointed by the lack of content and disorientation. In September, the Museum for Socialist Art opened, with an unreflective collection of totalitarian art. Critical discourse has definitely not yet arrived in this museum – as a location for history it has degenerated to location denying present day politics.
In contrast, the exhibition “Contact Sofia” is an excellent example on how one can deal with contemporary art history in the context of a complex political background. The exhibition provides a differentiated view by attempting to reconstruct art history in Eastern, Central and Southern Europe with works created before and after the Turnaround in 1989 . Clever juxtapositions make conceptual and activist artistic elective affinities as well as the different socio-political conditions under which they were produced visible. The works shown span the years from 1961 to 2004.
The audience in Sofia is rarely offered such a concentrated selection of conceptual and performative art, showing works by Pawel Althamer, Peter Weibel, Marina Grzinic & Aina Smid, Carola Dertnig, VALIE EXPORT, Natalia LL, Sanja Ivekovic, Sejla Kameric, Roman Ondac, Tanja Ostojic or Mladen Stilinovic or Geta Bratescu.
Compared to its neighbouring countries, the contemporary art scene in Bulgaria only started to develop in the mid 1980’s. The topos of artists such as Luchezar Boyadjiev, Ivan Moudov and Boryana Rossa was primarily mediatised public space, whose political and ethical conditions underlies different groups and which includes a considerable amount of conflict potential. Luchezar Boyadijiev created a personal map of his hometown Sofia “Home/Town” (1998) and thereby created a kind of psychological mapping. Sofia’s art terrain is familiar to Walter Seidl, author of numerous artmagazine articles, and Maria Vassileva, the curator of the Sofia Art Gallery, who organized this exhibition together. Ivan Moudov’s performance “Traffic Control” (2001) is on the cover of the exhibition catalogue and concentrates on the process of cultural translation. Dressed in the uniform of a Bulgarian police officer, Ivan Moudov directs the traffic at a crossing in Graz. It didn’t take longer than 10 minutes before the police stopped the illegal action.
By Ursula Maria Probst
Sofia City Art Gallery
1000 Sofia 1, Gen. Gurko Street
Tel: 00358 2 9872181
sghg.bg/
Opening hours: Tue – Sat 10 – 19 hours, Sun 11 – 18 hours
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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