Meeting Points 7
Ten thousand wiles and a hundred thousand tricks
10 May–31 August 2014
Opening: 9 May, 6pm
Lecture: Lawrence Abu Hamdan,
“Aural Contract: The Voice Before the Law,” 7pm
21er Haus
Schweizergarten
Arsenalstraße 1
1030 Vienna
www.meetingpoints.org
www.belvedere.at
www.festwochen.at
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Martin Arnold, Marwa Arsanios, Sven Augustijnen, Kianoush Ayari, Hicham Benohoud, Gerard Byrne, Filipa César, Céline Condorelli, DAAR, Ramesch Daha, Carola Dertnig, Goran Dević, Roy Dib, Eva Egermann, Simone Fattal, Simohammed Fettaka, Karpo Godina, Nilbar Güreş, Sharon Hayes, Adelita Husni-Bey, Iman Issa, Sanja Iveković, Maryam Jafri, Rajkamal Kahlon, Johanna Kandl, Anton Kannemeyer, Gülsün Karamustafa, Runo Lagomarsino, Victoria Lomasko, Maha Maamoun, Jumana Manna, Azzedine Meddour, Edgar Morin & Jean Rouch, Christian Philipp Müller, Tom Nicholson, Daniela Ortiz, Lisl Ponger, Darinka Pop-Mitić, Marta Popivoda, Arnulf Rainer/Dieter Roth, Curt Stenvert, Katarina Šević and Tehnica Schweiz (Gergely László and Péter Rakosi), Cecilia Vicuña
Curators: What, How and for Whom/WHW in collaboration with Luisa Ziaja, curator Belvedere/21er Haus
Organisers: Young Arab Theatre Fund/YATF
Production: Wiener Festwochen in cooperation with 21er Haus
Ten thousand wiles and a hundred thousand tricks opens at the 21er Haus, Vienna as part of the seventh edition of Meeting Points, a festival focusing on the contextualized presentation of art from the Arab World. The Vienna installment of the exhibition has been realized in close partnership with multidisciplinary art festival Wiener Festwochen and the 21er Haus, a contemporary art museum focusing on Austrian art and its embedding in an international context.
The title of the project, Ten thousand wiles and a hundred thousand tricks, is a quote from Wretched of the Earth (1961), the book revolutionary philosopher Frantz Fanon wrote as a reflection on the Algerian revolution and whose title derives from the opening lyrics of the “Internationale,” the song of the world workers’ movement. Conceived as an exhibition in time, Ten thousand wiles and a hundred thousand tricks resurfaces anew in each installment, realigning topics to fit particular locations and their specific geopolitical and historical contexts. It forays into several interlinked subjects: the role of middle classes today in revolts across different geographies, the forms taken by neo-colonialism, counter-revolution and co-optation, as well as the various strategies employed for countering oppression.
Juxtaposing recent works with historical positions, the exhibition incorporates a number of works from the 21er Haus/Belvedere collection, selected in close collaboration with Luisa Ziaja, curator at the 21er Haus. Having thus initiated a dialogue with this specific locale, the exhibition shifts its focus to a number of interrelated issues ranging from systematic intolerance, the rise of nationalist sentiment and anti-immigration laws across Europe to the reassessment of the modernist legacy and the role of museums in reshaping the relations between engagement, self-referentiality and aesthetics.
Ten thousand wiles and a hundred thousand tricks was inaugurated in Zagreb in September 2013, in Gallery Nova. The following installments of Meeting Points 7 took place at the MHKA in Antwerp in October 2013, at the Contemporary Image Collective (CIC) in Cairo in February 2014, in Hong Kong in March 2014 in collaboration with Para Site, and in April 2014 at Beirut Art Center. It opens in Moscow on 7 July at the Institute for African Studies, in collaboration with the V–A–C Foundation.
Meeting Points 7 is curated by What, How & for Whom/WHW, a curatorial collective formed in 1999 and based in Zagreb and Berlin. WHW organizes production, exhibition and publishing projects and directs Gallery Nova in Zagreb. WHW is currently working on a long-term collaboration project, Beginning as well as we can (How do we talk about fascism?), and curating the exhibition Really Useful Knowledge, to open at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in October.
The project is supported by the Ford Foundation, the Flemish Authorities, Allianz Kulturstiftung, the Australia Council for the Arts, FfAI, and OCA.
