March 22 until May 2

«On Uncanny States and Bodies»

-

Franz Artenjak, Drew Danielle Belsky, Mareike Bernien and Kerstin Schrödinger, Eva Egermann, Luke Fowler, Roland Gaberz, Philipp Timischl

«Aesthetics tracks the emotions that some bodies feel in the presence of other bodies.» (Siebers)

Uncanny states and bodies in the exhibition space. Unusual conditions in the 4th solar system. Various body and «teen issues», wishes and desires. Endless therapy loops in intense colors. About becoming violet, green and blue and the red of the roses in the patients’ room. Somehow one has lost one’s form, ultra-low with down-shifted pitch. Strangeness and divided selves everywhere… Uncertainty and uncanniness spread out everywhere.
The exhibition asks about the presence of deviance in the tradition of aesthetic representation, about divergences from the model of lack of damage. Common Artistic forms that reject the idea of privileged aesthetic sites are are commonly described as counter- and anti-aesthetic praxes. (Foster)
«Desires get a life on their own», comes from the loudspeaker. The artworks generate the uncanniness and various socialities in differing ways: by decoupled film montage, chimerical artist portraits, interruptions to video loops and painting, drawing and omissions, alienating sounds and situations, untimelyness and pictures of cosmic visions. «But wherever here is, let us not let it be anywhere else.» (Cooper)

Franz Artenjak (1920–1985) was born in South Tyrol. Because of epileptic attacks was taken to the regional hospital in Gugging (Psychiatry and Neurology). The drawings of his own cosmology were the result of his interest in astronomical data and cosmic visions. Thanks to the support of the mumok some drawings can be seen in Klagenfurt. (mumok.at, gugging.at)

Drew Danielle Belsky (Toronto) is a multidisciplinary artist. Her work investigates human embodiment and the ways in which bodies interact. Her drawings manipulate and disrupt traditional medical illustrations, exploring the surplus of social meanings and fantasies these images generate. Medical interventions are also the starting point of Belsky’s sound installation. Memories of familiar and foreign bodies are called to mind by various everyday situations. (drewdaniellebelsky. wordpress.com)

Mareike Bernien (Berlin) and Kerstin Schrödinger (London) work in the areas of film, video, radio drama, music and text. They attempt to critically interrogate image production and to produce (and reproduce) pictures as the material of thought. In their video installation «Red, she said …» the artists deconstruct filmic space into its elements and intervene in it. Colors become central to the plot and elements of a desire for unregulated color spaces and color saturated fields of desire. «Choir: We need to disconnect red from love. We need to disconnect red from the roses. We need to disconnect the roses from love. We barricade ourselves behind red. Red as a barricade against a sea of roses, against the icon. (...) Here we stand on the other side of nature. Against desire! Desire against!» (mar-ker.tumblr.com)

Eva Egermann (Vienna) works in various mediums and differing collaborative constellations (e.g. the Manoa Free University). Along with art projects she has published (e.g. «Regime. Wie Dominanz organisiert und Ausdruck formalisiert wird.» [Regime. How Dominance is Organized and Expression Formalized] or «Class Works») and been responsible for curatorial projects (e.g. «2 or 3 things we’ve learned. Intersections of Art, Pedagogy and Protest…»). During the exhibition the first edition of «Crip Magazine» which she publishes, will be available in the kunstraum lakeside. An installation, composed of reworked photos, shows various rooms and their cultural coding with pain and persistence.

Luke Fowler (Glasgow) is an artist, filmmaker and musician. He creates cinematic collages that have often been linked to the British Free Cinema movement of the 1950s, and his documentary films have often explored counter-cultural figures. In Klagenfurt Fowler exhibits his impressive film «All Divided Selves« from 2011, an exploration of the ideas and legacy of Scottish antipsychiatrist R.D. Laing (1927–89). «What we call ‹normal› is the product of repression, denial, splitting, projection and other forms of destructive reaction to experiences,» stated R.D. Laing in The Politics of Experience, published in 1967. «The decisively nonchronological arc that the film makes clearly goes beyond the boundaries of a biography. (…) The ‹self› or, as Laing puts it in his work ‹The Divided Self› (1960), the reciprocal, multiply layered function that oscillates between the perception of the self and others, is congenially expressed in the film in a sweeping and sometimes meticulously detailed assemblage.»1 

«All Divided Selves» (2011): A film by Luke Fowler; Music and Sound Design: Éric La Casa, Fowler, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Alasdair Roberts. Color and b/w, 93 min

Roland Gaberz (Vienna) studies object sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and, as «Forever Traxx», produces music and remixes. In addition to the sound performance on the opening night, Roland Gaberz is showing video works which were made as part of his music production. Sound and image collages of hypersanity (with R.D. Laing) in the presence of bodies and states of feeling. (onlinetillforever.com)

Philipp Timischl (Vienna) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and the HfbK Städelschule in Frankfurt and is presently on a scholarship as part of the Lenikus Collection residency program. His works were recently on show in Copenhagen, Oslo and Vienna. The elements of his video/painting diptych at the kunstraum refer to recurring questions of treatment and problematization. Since April 2012 Philipp Timischl und Roland Gaberz have been running the exhibition space «Hinter Haus des Meeres – HHDM» in Vienna together with Daphne Ahlers. (hhdm.eu).

Note:

1    Christian Höller, «Die Methode Fowler», springerin, Antihumanismus, Vol. XIX, No. 1 – Winter 2013, p. 12–13

Bibliography:

Tobin Siebers, «Disability Aesthetics», Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 7.2 (Spring/Summer 2006), www.jcrt.org

Hal Foster, «The Anti-Aesthetic, Essays on Postmodern Culture», The New Press New York, 1998;

David Cooper, T«he Grammar of Living», Pelican Books, 1976;

Mareike Bernien & Kerstin Schrödinger, dialogue from «Red, She Said …», mar-ker.tumblr.com

R.D. Laing, «The Politics of Experience», Penguin Books, 1964

Curated by Eva Egermann