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English summaries October 28 - November 11
Kunsthalle Nürnberg
Forever Young – On the myth of youth
31.10.2013 – 19.01.2014
By Matthias Kampmann
Mid October, the Nuremberg Kunsthalle celebrated its centennial. However, to celebrate this anniversary, curator Harriet Zilch focused on youth. Many artists in the past have dealt with the topic of coming of age. With “Forever Young. On the myth of youth”, the Nuremberg Kunsthalle proves that it has, in a way, stayed young, but has left it to others to experiment or explore limits.
Nothing against the show – it is stirring and enjoyable, yet many already well-known positions are presented: Rineke Dijkstra, Hans Peter Feldmann, Tobias Rehberger, Elmgreen and Dragset, Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler, Andreas Slominksi, Tamara Grcic. The exhibition presents 18 artists that do not show childhood and happiness in a glorified manner. On the contrary: growing up can be tiring and wears one out. Transition, insecurity, looking for trust, doubt and many seeming disappointments because one thinks to already understand so much, but feels that one doesn't understand a thing. This is reflected by most of the works.
One of these works is by the Belgian artist Sofie Muller, born 1974. “Clarysse” (2011). The work shows a row of five school desks. All of them have swastikas and the word “death” carved onto their surface. At one of the tables a girl in a school uniform is sitting bent forward. She is not sleeping at school – even if that's what it looks like. Terrible, because her head seems to have exploded and the remains are a sooty round shadow of burnt wood. What lead to the horrid detonation? Pink Floyd’s “We don’t need no education” is on ones’ mind, but also Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”, in which the hero Clarisse questions the crude system of oppression and raises doubts. Wonderfully ethereal in contrast Muller’s “Smoke Drawings” in wax and ash.
More space is devoted to the art of photography. Between 1996 and 2000, Hans Peter Feldmann took pictures of people ranging from an eight-week old infant to a person that was 100 years old. One human being, one year of life.
Among the other artists presenting their works in Nuremberg are Claus Richter, Marc Brandenburg and Corinna Schmitt, to name but a few.
Kunsthalle Nürnberg
90402 Nürnberg, Lorenzer Str. 32
Tel: +49 (0) 911 231 2853
Fax: +49 (0) 911 231 3721
Email: kunsthallexxlstadt.nuernberg.de
www.kunsthalle.nuernberg.de
Opening hours: Tue – Sun 10.00 – 18.00, Wed 10.00 – 20.00 hours
Wienerroither & Kohlbacher
Judith Reigl
09.10.2013 – 16.11.2013
By Daniela Gregori
The process is known for manuscripts: the writing or paint was washed or scraped from the surface in order to reuse the valuable vellum. Naturally, not everything disappeared, whereby parts of the former layer were visible beneath the new information. This was known as palimpsest.
Judith Reigl employs a similar procedure for her canvases in the series “Entrée – Sortie”. The surface of older paintings is mechanically removed, subsequently repainted monochrome, with only a black rectangle in the centre of the canvas marking a breakthrough in the coloured wall.
The depiction of dark door openings are not uncommon in art history – from the antiquity to present day - and painting over little appreciated canvases has always been a common practice. Reigl’s series additionally holds the imaginary option of exceeding the threshold to the chamber of each of the rejected, abandoned underlying painting or to let it reappear.
Judith Reigl describes the short pause in nether land between Hungary and Austria on her flight in 1950 as a euphoric key experience: “no passport, no visa, no luggage, no money, no identity, really free, my new life begins… vita nuova”. The artist, born in Hungary in 1923, did not stay in Austria – her goal was to reach Paris, where she was able to assert herself as one of the few women next to her male colleagues in exhibitions – her works were purchased by the most important international museums for contemporary art. In Austria, her former threshold to a new life, Wienerroither & Kohlbacher is now devoting an exhibition to the impressive artist.
Wienerroither & Kohlbacher
1010 Vienna, Freyung 1 – Strauchgasse 2
Tel: +43 1 533 99 77
Fax: +43 1 533 99 88
Email: office@austrianfineart.at
www.austrianfineart.com
Opening hours: Tue – Fri: 10.00 – 18.00 hours, Sat 10.00 – 12.00 hours
Bank Austria Kunstforum
Warhol/Basquiat
16.10.2013 – 02.02.2014
By Nina Schedlmayer
The artistic temperaments could hardly be more different: on the one hand, the cool Warhol and on the other, the expressive Basquiat – and both are at least one and a half generations apart . Their cooperation only lasted for two years. It therefore comes as no surprise that the works of the “Collaborations” exhibition at the Kunstforum are supplemented by a series of each artists individual works.
Already the first room shows to which extent the two inspired each other. In the “Art & Hammer” painting with two logos, the differing styles of Warhol and Basquiat collide with one another; in contrast, the juxtaposed “Hellmann’s Mayonnaise” almost appears stylistically homogenous. While Warhol had depicted his emblems, newspaper photos, consumer goods, price tags, logos and cartoon figures, and whatever else he was famous for, on silk screen, all of this was now found in the form of a painting due to Basquiat’s influence – in reminiscence of his Street Art.
It is a pity that the catalogue was not used to describe the collaborations in more detail, almost all of the texts deal with the artists but not their work. In only one essay does the gallery owner Bruno Bishofsberger, who owns or provided most of the works displayed, offer anecdote-like stories relating to the collaboration between Warhol and Basquiat- with the main focus mainly placed on his own merits. The chance to provide content-relevant details on the “Collaborations” was unfortunately forfeited.
Bank Austria Kunstforum
1010 Vienna, Freyung 8
Tel: +43 1 537 33 26
Fax: +43 1 537 33 27
Email: office@bankaustria-kunstforum.at
www.bankaustria-kunsforum.at
Opening hours: Daily 10.00 - 19.00 hours, Fri 10.00 - 21.00 hours
Curated By_ Vienna 2013
By Nina Schedlmayer
These days, what can one do with a broad field such as that of painting? New trends are hardly discernable. Accept the fact that painting is influenced by other media. But that was always so. And the fact that painting is not dead has also been bandied around. The medium doesn't easily take on a new mantle.
At the beginning of autumn, Berlin invited four institutions to celebrate painting as an imperative ("Painting, forever!"), in Vienna, the event is phrased as a question "Why Painting Now?" - this is the title of the current edition of "curated by", organised by Eva Maria Stadler.
Organising this charming event at various locations across the city has always been both an impediment as well as an asset. The organisational work behind the coordination of twenty galleries and twenty curators must be difficult, the same goes for finding a topic. And having come up with a much more concrete motto than in the previous year is a positive development. In any case, the event succeeds in offering a view of art from may different perspectives. The works range from Ei Arakawa at (Meyer Kainer), Gürsoy Dogtas (Charim) Yve-Alain Bois (Hubert Winter), Bart van der Heide (Layr), Marion Piffer Damiani (Elisabeth and Klaus Thoman), to name but a few.
Yet more information about the individual works would have been desirable - especially because so many positions are still in unknown in Vienna. As usual, the flyers are much too vague and the curators partly limited their statements to quotes, poems or mysterious wisdom-related messages. In this heap of incomprehensible paper, the event inadvertently demonstrates the difficulties of communication associated with contemporary art compilations.
www.curatedby.at
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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