Program 2018

Kunsthalle Wien kicks off the year with an exhibition by Belgian artist Guy Mees. The weather is quiet, cool and soft (February 1–April 29, 2018). A central figure of Antwerp’s art scene since the 1970s, Guy Mees (1935–2003) left behind an outstanding œuvre that transgresses geometric abstraction, minimal and conceptual art. With emblematic examples from distinct creative phases, the exhibition emphasizes his continuing significance.

2018 also marks the launch of a new and ongoing discursive series, Political Futures that will debate the role of the future between the poles of art and politics. Departing from ideas raised in the exhibitions Political Populism (2015/16) and How To Live Together (2017), international participants are invited to discuss strategies by which the future can be reactivated as a source of political thought and action.

In a world marked by expulsion, uprooting, and trauma, Ydessa Hendeles. Death to Pigs (February 28–May 27, 2018) addresses such issues by bringing artworks, historical artifacts, photographic and audiovisual media together in complex installations that allow for myriad readings. The ingenuitive Canadian artist Hendeles switches between roles questioning what they entail and the art system as such. Examining mechanisms of social inclusion and exclusion, Hendeles’ compositions can be read as provocative, psychologically charged meditations on human nature.

The fleeting nature of encounters are explored in the solo-exhibition of Kate Newby (May 16–September 2, 2018) whose subtle yet radical interventions in existing environments become poetic confrontations with spatial conditions and overlooked aspects of daily life. Engaging with ephemeral situations, the objects Newby creates are testimonies to individual experiences and shared moments.

The summer of 2018 promises an exciting prototype for a new exhibition format with Space 4 Kids: A Dream City (July 2–September 2, 2018). On-going and ever changing, Space 4 Kids aims to meet the needs and perspectives of children, combining action and contemplation, production and reception. It will provide an innovative platform for learning and exchange that is as much a playground as it is art studio and educational exhibition.

The third exhibition of the summer season is dedicated to conceptual artist Olaf Nicolai. There is No Place before Arrival (July 13–September 30, 2018) at Kunsthalle Wien is one of three simultaneously organized exhibitions of Nicolai, the first being at Kunsthalle Bielefeld and the second at Kunstmuseum St. Gallen. Together the three exhibitions form a survey which will explore diverse facets of Nicolai’s practice. Working with different mediums, Nicolai’s œuvre frequently questions our habitual ways of seeing things, reflecting on modalities and how the relation between meaning and experience constantly takes shape.

September sees the opening of Saâdane Afif. This is Ornamental (September 19–November 18, 2018) unfolding a set of new works driven from a theater play, itself written on the basis of the work Souvenir: The Lesson of Geometry, a series of performances that he presented at the 5th Marrakesh Biennale in 2014. Embracing methods of collaboration, inclusion and circulation, inside and outside of his work, Afif builds a complex system of relationships with the history of art and forms. Repetitions, derivations, transcriptions, translations, delegations: Saâdane Afif’s creation processes seal the fundamental openness and transitivity of his practice.  

Antarctica. An Exhibition about Alienation (October 25, 2018–February 17, 2019) is an extensive thematic presentation of numerous contemporary artworks. Alienation was a dominant concern for sociologists around 1900: the alienation of man from society through individualization, alienation from nature through urbanization, alienation from work through mechanization. For philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, alienation turns into a key concept in terms of the role art plays in and for society: without alienation, there is no art, and ultimately it is only art that prevents total alienation.

The Kunsthalle Wien Prize (December 5, 2018–January 27, 2019) returns again, annually awarding an outstanding student of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, respectively.

2018 comes to a close with the solo-exhibition of Peter Friedl (December 14, 2018–March 10, 2019). Friedl’s practice revolves around the problems of attribution of meaning, of categorization, of representation, of translation. His work is consistently political, but negotiates the political on an abstract level. The more recent works take a complex and seemingly hermetic approach to various issues with acute contemporary relevance. Drawing on extensive research on historical and social backgrounds, his works invoke diverse perspectives on reality while also suggesting various forms that an image thereof can assume.

Stay connected:
Please check our website for regular updates on our program.
For further information please contact: Stefanie Obermeir
T +43 (0) 1 5 21 89 1224 / presse@kunsthallewien.at