Openings in Graz, Austria: fall 2013

CMRK openings in Graz, Austria

All exhibitions are coproduced by the steirischer herbst festival

CMRK is a network of four independent institutions for contemporary art based in Graz: Camera Austria, Künstlerhaus KM–, , and Grazer Kunstverein.

Unexpected Encounters
Camera Austria
September 22–November 17
www.camera-austria.at

… Was ist Kunst? … Resuming Fragmented Histories
Künstlerhaus KM–
Halle für Kunst & Medien
September 22–November 21
www.km-k.at

Measures of Saving the World _ Part 3

September 22–November 23
www.rotor.mur.at

Doug Ashford
The Members Library: Trisha Brown: Early Works 1966–1979
The Peacock: Nina Beier, Sarah Browne, Germaine Kruip, Will Stuart, Robert Wilhite
Grazer Kunstverein
September 22–November 24
www.grazerkunstverein.org

Is it necessary for artists and cultural initiatives or institutions, which are active in countries experiencing societal conflicts and upheaval, to automatically define themselves through these conflicts? Is not this expectation itself just an outrageous ascription of cultural and political identity? The project Unexpected Encounters at Camera Austria has an open beginning, for only those topics that the individual collectives explore on site end up becoming expressed through language and visual presentation. It is not a gain in authenticity that we are expecting, but rather the beginning of a debate full of unexpected collisions of ideas and concepts, so that we may leave behind those ascriptions that are currently being divided into antagonisms of a religious, political, cultural, or ethnic nature.

With 0gms (Sofia): Kamen Stoyanov, Ivan Moudov in collaboration with Nemanja Cvijanović, Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkáčová, Pravdoliub Ivanov, Beirut (Cairo): Jens Maier-Rothe, Sarah Rifky, Antonia Alampi, Habiba Effat in collaboration with Malak Helmy, Hassan Khan, Mada Masr, Jasmina Metwaly, Kontekst collective (Belgrade) in collaboration with Nina Höchtl, KURS, and Bojana Piškur & Ðorđe Balmazović (REC / Škart)

When Raša Todosijević repeatedly asked a silent woman the question Was ist Kunst? (What is art?) in a series of performances at the end of the seventies, this could not only be interpreted as a particularly forceful reprise of an eternal discourse, but also as criticism of conditions in communist Yugoslavia at that time. Künstlerhaus KM– is now taking this question as the starting point for a situational analysis, demonstrating exemplary positions in the partly historical Yugoslavian avant-garde, from OHO to IRWIN, and reviewing how the meanwhile radically changed territorial and cultural relations have impacted the production of art, also in recent times. How do these changed geopolitical coordinates affect how gender and political differences are produced locally by art, activism, and visual culture? What exactly is the social role of art?
… Was ist Kunst? … with a question mark, then as now, is to be seen at Künstlerhaus KM–.

With Mrđan Bajić, Vojin Bakić, Mladen Bizumić, Braco Dimitrijević, Aleksandra Domanović, Bojan Fajfric, Tomislav Gotovac, Marina Gržinić / Aina Šmid, Ibro Hasanović, Ana Hoffner, IRWIN, Hristina Ivanoska, Sanja Iveković, Adela Jušić / Lana Čmajčanin, Šejla Kamerić, Marko Krojač, Laibach, Marko Lulić, David Maljković, Luiza Margan, Dalibor Martinis, OHO, Tanja Ostojić, Marko Pogačnik, Renata Poljak, Marta Popivoda, Sašo Sedlaček, Raša Todosijević, and Goran Trbuljak

“There is no alternative” was yesterday. Today the opposite is true: “There are thousands of alternatives!” is going ahead with the long-term series of exhibitions titled Measures of Saving the World: Part 3, which questions: If all paths are open, what course should we follow to overcome the prevailing economic system and its profound crises? Is it better to bring about small changes step by step? Or, in view of the extent of global problems, to consider radical change instead? One approach emerges as a castle in the air, unfeasible, while the other simply follows well-worn tracks and makes too many compromises. On the other hand, major progress often only becomes possible as a result of radical thought!

With: Christian Eisenberger, Tue Greenfort, Johanna Kirsch, Lada Nakonechna, Greg Sholette & participants of the Imaginary Archive

During the steirischer herbst 2013, Grazer Kunstverein continues to investigate various notions of “social abstraction” by presenting abstracted formalisations of social (collective) representation; from the schematic analytical paintings of Doug Ashford, the physical investigations between the body and its surroundings within the work of Trisha Brown, the alterations between geometric forms and ritualistic structures in the recent performances by Germaine Kruip, and the economic responsibility of labour vis-à-vis the production of art as exemplified within the work of Sarah Browne.