VIENNA ART WEEK 2015
Creating Common Good
16–22 November 2015
For one week in November, Vienna’s leading art institutions and galleries, exhibition spaces and artist-run spaces join together in order to celebrate art in over 200 events, ranging between contemporary experiment and the Baroque. VIENNA ART WEEK is a festival not to be missed by artists, critics, curators, collectors and art lovers from home or abroad.An international special exhibition is dedicated to this year’s motto, Creating Common Good.
Creating Common Good
The exhibition “Creating Common Good” presents 35 works by international artists, who approach the meaning of “common good” from different views and on multiple levels. “All artists and collectives involved outline new criteria and concepts for the use of public space and joint use of resources. They call out for more political activism and the empowerment of civil society, offering alternatives to the establishment and claim the right to participate in shaping society”, explain Robert Punkenhofer and Ursula Maria Probst, the curators of the exhibition, the common denominator of the participating artists.
Presented works and artists include:
Los Encargados (Those in Charge) by Jorge Galindo & Santiago Sierra (ESP). The work is based on a series of portraits of King Juan Carlos I and the six prime ministers of Spain since 1976, the last of whom curtailed the right to protest and is an expression of the people’s resentment over corrupt power systems.
Heidrun Holzfeind’s (AUT) video installation Never neverland features three independent videos of micro societies in California, Austria and Slovenia, who all present different alternatives to the West’s neoliberal lifestyle.
Signed by 50 countries as of 2015, the Antarctic Treaty stipulates that the Antarctic should only be used jointly, for peaceful and scientific purposes. As a tribute to the treaty, Lucy+Jorge Orta (FRA/GBR/ARG) undertook an Antarctic expedition in 2007 to set up the Antarctic flag and found an ephemeral village.
Ina Wudtke’s (DEU) work I AM THE LAW focuses on the effects of global real estate business on social housing.
Peter Friedl’s (AUT) drawings act as a lyrical voice that documents, subverts and comments on personal and sociopolitical (hi)stories. The term “commons” recurs in various ways in the selected works.
Other artists in the exhibition curated by Robert Punkenhofer (Artistic Director of VIENNA ART WEEK) and Ursula Maria Probst (art critic, curator and artist) include Joseph Beuys, Akram Al Halabi, Atelier Van Lieshout, Democracia, Ines Doujak, Leon Golub, Tamara Grcic, Gruppe Uno Wen, Anna Jermolaewa, Bernhard Cella, Ramesch Daha, Teresa Estapé, Folke Köbberling, Ernst Logar, Peter Friedl, Teresa Margolles, Lisl Ponger, Martha Rosler, Isa Rosenberger, Tim Sharp, Axel Stockburger, tart ort, Johanna Tinzl, transparadiso, Patricia Triki, Nasan Tur, Anna Witt, Ina Wudtke and Sislej Xhafa.
Exhibition: »Creating Common Good«
16. Nov.– 10. Jan. 2016
Opening: Mo., 16. Nov. 2015, 6pm
KUNST HAUS WIEN, Untere Weißgerberstraße 13, 1030 Vienna
Several more exhibitions in Vienna reflect on “the common good” such as “Populism” at the Kunsthalle Vienna and “Social Glitch” at the Kunstraum Niederoesterrreich.
Talk by Saskia Sassen
The renowned American sociologist and economist Saskia Sassen will give a talk in the context of Vienna Art Week. In her new book “expulsions”, Sassen examines how the global financial market and current economical structures make it possible for people to create an environment that serves their own private interests, leading to growing displacement, inequality and unemployment. Increased privatization of public spaces and goods has led to a gradual reduction of the “common good.” Citizens need to take an active part in all areas of the city, says Sassen: “It’s also about political economy: people have to feel like they are actors in their community.”
Talk by Saskia Sassen: »At the systemic edge«
Friday, 20. Nov. 2015, 6 pm
Location: KUNST HAUS WIEN, Untere Weißgerberstraße 13, 1030 Vienna
As always, VIENNA ART WEEK presents an abundant program: Vienna’s major art institutions will be offering readings, talks, special guided tours and openings, including a Margot Pilz retrospective (MUSA), works by Vija Celmins (Secession), Baroque Baroque by Olafur Eliasson (The Winter Palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy) and the exhibition Eyes Aghast: Transmannerist Reactions (xhibit, Academy of Fine Arts). In the panel discussion From Art to Creating Common Good at the Academy of Fine Arts, eight international curators including Çelenk Bafra (İstanbul Museum), Elham Puriyamehr (freelance curator, artist, and author, Tehran) and Hajnalka Somogyi (freelance curator, Budapest) will discuss the social responsibilities of curators.
Vienna’s galleries also feature a broad spectrum of lectures, artist talks and curator-guided tours. On Open Studio Day around 100 artists will open the doors to their studios to anyone interested in art. Numerous special projects and events held at artist-run spaces provide an opportunity to discover Vienna’s many facets as a cultural city that are hidden but definitely worth seeing.
Get more info about the program under: