Subversive Practices
Art under Conditions of Political Repression
60s – 80s / South America / Europe
May 30 – August 2, 2009
Schlossplatz 2
D-70173 Stuttgart
info [at] wkv-stuttgart.de
Friday, May 29, 2009, 11 am
Opening
Friday, May 29, 2009, 7 pm
Symposium
May 30 – 31, 2009
From May 30 to August 2, 2009 the Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart will be devoting itself to experimental and conceptual art practices that had established between the nineteen-sixties and eighties in Europe and South America under the influence of military dictatorships and communist regimes. Both the exhibition, comprising around eighty artistic positions, as well as the related complementary program have been developed by a team of thirteen international curators in close collaboration with the Kunstverein.
The exhibition’s nine sections will be focused on various contexts and strategies of artistic production along with their positioning vis-à-vis both political and cultural repression in the GDR, Hungary, Romania, the Soviet Union, Spain (under Franco), Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Peru. Of equal concern here are both the particularities of and the relations between the different temporal and local environments.
The exhibition undertakes the experiment of a shifted cartograph and an extended understanding of conceptual practices established well beyond the Anglo-American canon. In this respect, the related interdisciplinary, collaborative, and sociopolitical potentials of theses practices are particularly emphasized—that is, the paradigm shifts between visual arts, politics, society, education, architecture, design, mass media, literature, dance, activism, and so forth that have been educed by them.
Furthermore, the focus is on artistic practices that not only radically question the conventional concept of art, the institutions, and the relationship between art and public, but that have, at the same time, subversively thwarted structures of censorship and opposed the existing systems of power. The appropriation of communications systems has thereby played a distinctive role in the establishment of the widely ramified networks between (Eastern) Europe and South America.
Artists
Carlos Altamirano, Gábor Altorjay, Ângelo de Aquino, Luis Arias Vera, Horia Bernea, Artur Barrio, Autoperforationsartisten, László Beke (Archiv), Teresa Burga, CADA, Ulises Carrión, Dalibor Chatrný, Carlfriedrich Claus, Attila Csernik, Guillermo Deisler, Eugenio Dittborn, Juan Downey, Jorge Eielson, Diamela Eltit, Miklós Erdély, Roberto Evangelista, Constantin Flondor, Fernando França Cocchiarale, Enric Franch (Archiv), Die Gehirne, Carlos Ginzburg, Ion Grigorescu, Claus Hänsel, Rafael Hastings, Paulo Herkenhoff, Emilio Hernández Saavedra, Taller E.P.S. Huayco, Joseph W. Huber, Pavel Ilie, Indigo Group, Iosif Kiraly, Jiri Kocman, Kollektive Aktionen, Carlos Leppe, Gastão de Magalhães, Francisco Mariotti, Alfredo Márquez, Fernando Marzá (Archiv), Gonzalo Mezza, Ivonne von Mollendorff, Muntadas, Paul Neagu, César Olhagaray, Clemente Padín, Letícia Parente, Grupo Paréntesis, Catalina Parra, Gyula Pauer, Luis Pazos, Dan Perjovschi, Julio Plaza, Féliks Podsiadly, Robert Rehfeld, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeld, Herbert Rodríguez, Juan Carlos Romero, Lotty Rosenfeld, Jesús Ruiz Durand, Juan Javier Salazar, Valeri Scherstjanoi, Cornelia Schleime, Grupul Sigma, Petr Stembera, Gabriele Stötzer, Tamás Szentjóby, Grup de Treball, Regina Vater, Sala Vinçon (Archiv), Cecilia Vicuña, Edgardo Antonio Vigo, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Horacio Zabala, Sergio Zevallos
Idea and Concept
Iris Dressler, Hans D. Christ
Cocurators
Ramón Castillo / Paulina Varas (Santiago de Chile / Valparaíso)
Fernando Davis (Buenos Aires)
Cristina Freire (São Paulo)
Sabine Hänsgen (Cologne)
Miguel Lopez / Emilio Tarazona (Barcelona / Lima)
Ileana Pintilie Teleaga (Timisoara)
Valentín Roma / Daniel García Andújar (Barcelona)
Annamária Szöke / Miklós Peternák (Budapest)
Anne Thurmann-Jajes (Bremen)
Press release at