‘Das Anliegen’
[The Concern]
Erwin Auer, Bernhard Cella, Peter Fritzenwallner, Erich Gruber, Gerhard Himmer, Simon Iurino, Stefan Klampfer, Nathalie Koger, Anna Meyer, Amy Oestlund, Felix Pöchhacker, Markus Proschek, Bernhard Resch, Anja Ronacher, Anna Schwarz, Annelies Senfter, Tom Streit
Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg
12 December 2015 — 7 February 2016
Art’s social value is reflected in its tendency to give shape to the present and to set new ideas in motion. We might identify the point of departure for artistic production as that of concern. This is therefore what the 2015 annual members’ exhibition was devoted to: Which concerns are the artist members of the Salzburger Kunstverein presently dealing with? And how are these concerns manifested in artworks? This exhibition tried to assemble works mirroring the complexity of individual concerns and artistic practices revolving around the Kunstverein.
‘Flirting with Strangers’
Herbert Albrecht, Franz Amann, Martin Arnold, Richard Artschwager, Jo Baer, Franz Barwig the Elder, Georg Baselitz, Herbert Bayer, Herbert Boeckl, Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Cäcilia Brown, Gerard Byrne, John Chamberlain, Lovis Corinth, Josef Dabernig, Svenja Deininger, Thomas Demand, Verena Dengler, Carola Dertnig, Gerald Domenig, Heinrich Dunst, Angus Fairhurst, Gelitin, Bruno Gironcoli, Carl Goebel the Younger, Roland Goeschl, Dan Graham, Robert Gruber, Julia Haller, Swetlana Heger & Plamen Dejanoff, Alois Heidel, Damien Hirst, Benjamin Hirte, Christine & Irene Hohenbüchler, Kathi Hofer, Lisa Holzer, Judith Hopf, Bernhard Hosa, Kurt Hüpfner, Christian Hutzinger, Lukáš Jasanský & Martin Polák, Anna Jermolaewa, Ernst Juch, Birgit Jürgenssen, Tillman Kaiser, Luisa Kasalicky, Michael Kienzer, Erika Giovanna Klien, Jakob Lena Knebl, Kiki Kogelnik, Nathalie Koger, Peter Kogler, Oskar Kokoschka, Cornelius Kolig, Elke Krystufek, Hans Kupelwieser, František Kupka, Maria Lassnig, Sonia Leimer, Anita Leisz, Sherrie Levine, Thomas Locher, Sarah Lucas, Marko Lulić, Christian Mayer, Dorit Margreiter, Christoph Meier, Carl von Merode, Alois Mosbacher, Matt Mullican, Edvard Munch, Flora Neuwirth, Oswald Oberhuber, Nick Oberthaler, Walter Obholzer, Giulio Paolini, Elisabeth Penker, Rudolf Polanszky, Lisl Ponger, Antonín Procházka, Florian Pumhösl, Bernd Ribbeck, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Anton Romako, Anja Ronacher, Wally Salner, Christian Schwarzwald, Johannes Schweiger, Martina Steckholzer, Edward Steichen, Rudolf Stingel, Gerold Tagwerker, Rosemarie Trockel, Esin Turan, Salvatore Viviano, Johannes Vogl, Maja Vukoje, Rebecca Warren, Christoph Weber, Letizia Werth, Franz West, Sue Williams, Robert Wilson, Erwin Wurm, Otto Zitko, Heimo Zobernig; curated by Severin Dünser and Luisa Ziaja
21er Haus, Vienna
9 September 2015 — 31 January 2016
Why not, for once, look at a collection as a fabric of relationships among things and their encounters? And as an opportunity that, as Baudrillard put it, might establish an ‘everyday prose of objects, […] a triumphant unconscious discourse’? Picking up on this idea, Flirting with Strangers, the autumn exhibition on the ground floor of the 21er Haus, stages an exciting, playful, and sometimes also unexpected encounter of works from the collection. Is it necessary to have many things in common to “strike up a conversation”, or is it rather individual peculiarities that will ignite a spark?
Works of art are objects to which a particularly high degree of individuality is ascribed: none exactly resembles the other, and they are characterised by their uniqueness. This is why they are usually also considered worth collecting. Once chosen, they become one among many, which is one of the paradoxes inherent to collecting of comparing what is incomparable. Museum collections are generally associated with the systematisation of objects according to scientific categories and art historical classification criteria that are apt to establish connections, make sense, and, as powerful entities of interpretation, produce authoritative knowledge. And exhibitions are, after all, organisations and arrangements of knowledge, which, however, also have the potential to conceive alternative interpretations and that enable actualisation.
Flirting with Strangers presents works by more than one hundred artists in a show that seeks to rethink the format of a collection exhibition: it deliberately unfolds along achronological lines and independent of the history of styles while occasionally emphasising seemingly negligible aspects or similarities that might be far fetched – with the intention to sharpen our focus on detail and the individual piece and at the same time to propose possible unexpected relationships among things.