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English summaries May 21 - June 2
Secession, Freiaum/quartier 21, xhibit
Unrest of form – Imagining the political subject
11.05.2013 – 16.06.2013
By Nina Schedlmayer
Art is there for everyone, but only the elite knows – the press release on the exhibition of the Vienna Festival titled “Unrest of Form – Imagining the Political Subject” quotes artist Dora García. And the quote describes the dilemma of the show quite well. In this case one could surmise that the elite consists of the five-member team of curators (Karl Baratta, Stefanie Carp, Matthias Pees, Hedwig Saxenhuber, Georg Schöllhammber) and possibly a few more. Those who are not insiders will have a hard time understanding the positions displayed here that might go beyond two relatively obvious observations – first, politics are sometimes, in the broadest sense, an art topic, and second: art at times works in a cross-disciplinary manner.
This project is distributed across three areas and attempts to bring theatre, performance, fine arts, poetry and maybe even more together. But the feeling constantly creeps up that one is here at the wrong moment. Entering the black box in the second third of a one-hour film is something everyone has gotten used to. But here you arrive too early even for this lecture, and too late for this performance; and somebody is sitting in a glass shack interviewing a colleague and one doesn’t really know why.
Certainly, even in this permanent stage of transition one can make discoveries: such as the painting by Hassan Khan depicting a detailed oversized damaged floral still life – obviously amateur work. Or the video installation by Chris Kondek, showing bankers gathering in a kind of séance. And of course the totem-like assembled sculptures by sculptor Heinz Frank.
“The space that this course attempts to open is one of aesthetic action that reveals itself in acts of subjectification and taking the floor and disturbing predetermined identities, placements and visualisations”, the accompanying publication states. Yet spaces only open up with difficulty here. What remains is the realization that theatre cannot easily be transferred into an art institution.
Secession
1010 Vienna, Friedrichstrasse 12
Tel: +43 1 587 53 07
Fax: +43 1 587 53 07-34
www.secession.at
Opening hours: Tue - Sat 10-18 hours, Sun 10-16 hours
Freiraum / quartier21
1070 Vienna, Museumsplatz 1
Tel: +43 1 587 53 07
Fax: +43 1 587 53 07-34
www.quartier21.at
Opening hours: Tue - Sat 13-19 hours
xhibit
1010 Vienna, Schillerplatz 3
Tel: +43 1 587 53 07
Fax: +43 1 587 53 07-34
www.akbild.ac.at
Opening hours: Tue - Sun 10-18 hours
Startgalerie im MUSA
Anna Mitterer
14.05.2013 – 06.06.2013
By Wolfgang Pichler
The setting reminds of the classic regal portrait of modern history such as Velázquez’ famous portrait of Marianne of Austria in 1651: an artfully draped curtain with antique motives in the left corner, a statue on a pedestal on the right, and a worthy gentleman presenting himself self-consciously and proudly in his finest robe in the middle. And this worthy man is a Navajo shaman called Roy Pete; he is the protagonist in the large-format portrait of the “BE-TAS-TNI” series by Anna Mitterer. The artist, born 1980, presents a setting similar to the one used by photographers in the second half of the 19th century.
With a series of five similarly structured photos, the image of the “Indian” varies – it ranges from “non-existent” (empty setting), a traditional tribal garb, a classic suit of a gentleman around 1900 to a present-day depiction in a hoody. The title – the equivalent of “mirror” in Navajo – reveals that the main topic is not Roy Pete, but rather our clichés and viewing habits. This becomes especially clear in two other works of the show. These Spartan paintings, sketched with black colour on canvas, depict the classic situation in the photo studio in which the above-mentioned late 19th century portraits originated. The requirements for the creation of clichés are yet again ironically breached in the second canvas painting, in which the canvas forms a folded screen, the indispensible accessory in every studio at the time, that was utilized to hide all socially undesirable facts (nudity and sexuality), becomes the actual object of interest.
Summing up one can say that this exhibition is a well-conceived and at the same time aesthetically appealing confrontation with the visions of the “Wild West” and “Indians” created by Karl May. Anna Mitterer holds “BE-TAS-TNI” against our stereotype perceptions, and thereby does exactly what has always made art uncomfortable but also indispensible.
Startgalerie im MUSA
1010 Vienna, Felderstrasse 6-8, next to the City Hall
www.musa.at
Opening hours: Tue, Wed, Fri 11 – 18 hours, Thu 11 - 20 hours, Sat 11 – 16 hours
Galerie Elisabeth and Klaus Thoman
Maria Brunner – Klar Schilf zum Geflecht (Clear Cane for Wickerwork)
04.05.2013 – 26.06 2013
By Wolfgang Pichler
Who doesn't know the dreams in which a familiar person appears with strange or unrecognisable facial features. The large-format oil paintings displayed in this show make a very similar impression.
The very skilfully painted portraits of young women are garishly colourful but not at all alacritous. The eyes are often the only things visible in the faces of those portrayed but the actual portrait is always prefixed with partly indefinable elements, and partly clearly definable elements such as flowers or parts of a clown's mask. However, these mask-like elements come across as much more revelatory than veiling, whereby the impression arises that these alterations of the face would initially bring the character of the portrayed person to light. Which mask one wears is, in this case, more revealing than the unmasked face. That there are several pictures of a number of models with partly very differing alterations only increases the impression of intensive preoccupation with the respective theme.
Particularly successful is the picture which shows a short-haired, young woman with a clown's nose and corresponding make-up, laughing hysterically. Here in particular, the absurd, and at the same time liberating, element of such a masking is brought to light. The person behind the mask stays in the darkness and yet one has the impression that she is visible.
Also impressive is the virtuoso superfluous modelling in the two still lifes which both show an empty "Freudian couch" and bear the somewhat platitudinous title "Dream in a Dream". One thinks instinctively of Baroque masters such as Allori or van Dyck but also of Goya's naked Maya when one sees the sensually glittering surface of the bedspread. Magritte and Gottfried Helenwein also seem to belong to the many refernces of this postmodern version of surrealism.
The large-format canvasses appear rather cool in spite of the partially vivid colours and are not actually beautiful but rather disturbing, and this is exactly where their quality lies.
Galerie Elisabeth and Klaus Thoman
1010 Vienna, Seilerstätte 7
Tel: + 43 1 512 08 40
E-mail: galerie@galeriethoman.com
www.galeriethoman.com
Opening times: Tue-Fri 12-18 hours, Sat 11-16 hours
Galerie Andreas Huber
Rudolf Polanszky
17.05.2013 – 22.06.2013
By Margareta Sandhofer
Crumpled cardboard, painted and impaled on wobbly pikes. That which, at first glance, looks like a successful chunk by Franz West, is something completely different, it shows itself much more like one of the multiple sources of inspiration which were the basis for his socially-oriented art cosmos and art term. (1)
Rudolf Polanszky's works and work titles are elaborate, originating from a many-layered, complex thought structure. The "Hypertransform Sculpture" conceals its content, its essence in convolutions. Its outward confusion has been violently opened, the former ball-shaped figure sawn through. The gaping centre is visible in the distorted mirror image in order to merge itself with its apparent opposite into a coveted symmetrical whole. The symbiosis is illusionary. Depending on the perspective, the recognisability of the visible alternates, cognition is relativized. The sculpture is a thought experiment, extremely fragile and threatens to break apart or fall in on itself at any moment.
It marks a momentary situation in a permanently changing condition. It's a momentary detail cut out of a "hyperbolic space" which, as a multi-dimensional spiritual space evolves continually, thereby retracting a permanent validity in pictorial equivalence. For Rudolf Polanszky, this has real character as an ideal concept and is of superior, existential importance for his understanding of art and the world. In this respect, each of his manifest expressions in the form of an art work is a very personal level of peregrination, a plastic definition of a momentarily subjective manifestation, precise in its imprecision. The sculpture appears as an entity, as an ambiguous reflection in its relativity which is concrete in the succinct matter and precisely embodied as the highest authenticity.
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(1) Rudolf Polanszky and Franz West met at the beginning of the 70's. Friendship and occasional teamwork followed. West also temporarily used Polanszky's studio.
Galerie Andreas Huber
1040 Vienna, Schleifmuehlgasse 6-8
Tel: +43-1-586 02 37
Fax: +43-1-586 02 37
E-mail: art@galerieandreashuber.at
www.galerieandreashuber.at
Opening times: Tue-Fri 11-18 hours, Sat 11-15 hours
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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