Exhibitions

Yasmeen Lari  Architecture for the Future
Exhibition at Architekturzentrum Wien — 
09.03.2023 – 16.08.2023

Yasmeen Lari is Pakistan’s first woman architect. She designed iconic modernist buildings before initiating a zero-carbon self-build movement for climate refugees and the landless. This exhibition uses Lari’s oeuvre as an example to show how the relationship of architecture to the future has changed

Over the past two decades, she has developed and implemented her system of zero-carbon architecture based on local economies, on innovating traditional building techniques, using the climate-neutral materials of bamboo, lime, and mud, as well as providing training in self-building and women-centered ways of working. Together with climate refugees and the landless, Lari has built tens of thousands of flood- and earthquake-resistant houses, sanitation infrastructure, smokeless stoves, and community facilities.

Modern architecture was based on the claim to build a better future—today we are living with the consequences: extreme weather events, fossil fuel dependence, and destruction on a planetary scale. Architecture is challenged to become co-responsible and not to give up working towards ecological justice. Yasmeen Lari’s credo for an architecture for the future: “We must tread lightly on the planet.”

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Curators: Angelika Fitz, Elke Krasny, and Marvi Mazhar
Scenography: Alexandra Maringer
Graphic design: Alexander Ach Schuh
Project coordination: Agnes Wyskitensky

The exhibition is accompanied by the book Yasmeen Lari: Architecture for the Future, published by the MIT Press. With contributions by Angelika Fitz, Elke Krasny, Marvi Mazhar, Chris Moffat, Helen Thomas, Anila Naeem, Abira Ashfaq, Raquel Rolnik, Anne Karpf, Runa Khan, Cassandra Cozza, and Rafia Zakaria.

 

Critical Care. Architecture for a Broken Planet 
Flanders Architecture Institute, J. V. Rijswijcklaan 155, 2018 Antwerpen
Exhibition: 28 May 2022 – 11 September 2022

A planet in crisis. The earth in intensive care. Man-made environmental and social catastrophes are threatening to render the planet uninhabitable. The situation is critical and, dominated by the interests of capital, architecture and urbanism are caught up in the crisis. The exhibition Critical Care shows how architecture and urbanism can contribute to repairing the future and keeping the planet and its inhabitants alive. After stops in Vienna, Zürich, Dresden and Berlin Critical Care is on showcase in De Singel, Antwerp

Critical Care, an exhibition of the Architekturzentrum Wien, is an appeal for a new approach, for a caring architecture and urbanism. 21 current examples from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, the USA and Latin America prove that architecture and urban development do not have to be subservient to the dictates of capital and the exploitation of resources and labour.

In this space, you can see two exhibitions coming together. Critical Care: Architecture for a Broken Planet (an exhibition by Architekturzentrum Wien) is laid out across the walls and Care for Space for Care: Scenes from Flanders and Brussels is positioned in the rooms at the centre of the exhibitionhall. Critical Care offers a framework to understand the role of care in architecture with examples from around the world, while Care for Space for Care provides insight into the local context with clues about the spatial experience of nine projects.
Care for Space for Care explores how care and architecture can nurture each other. The spaces we live in can care for us and our planet, while we also take care of them. With this continuous loop, caring can become one of the inherent characteristics of architectural design.

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DATE: 28.05.2022 – 11.09.2022
LOCATION: De Singel (Expo)
ADDRESS: Desguinlei 25, 2018 Antwerp (BE)
PRODUCER: Flanders Architecture Institute and De Singel
EXHIBITION CONCEPT: Architekturzentrum Wien
CURATORS: Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny
GRAPHIC DESIGN: Alexander Ach Schuh

Critical Care. Architecture for a Broken Planet 
08.02.2020 – 22.03.2020 daz — Deutsches Architektur Zentrum
Exhibition: 08.02.–22.03.2020, Wed – Sun 3– 8 PM

A Planet in crisis. Earth in intensive care. Human-made environmental and social catastrophes are threatening to render the planet uninhabitable. The situation is critical, and dominated by the interests of capital. architecture and urbanism are caught up in the crisis.

But it could all be different. The Critical Care exhibition presented first at the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W) presents 21 current projects from around the world, including earthquake-proof and sustainable village development in China, flood protection through traditional low-carbon construction techniques in Pakistan and Bangladesh, diverse conversions of modernist buildings in Brazil and Europe, an ecological community land trust in Puerto Rico, the revitalization of historic irrigation systems in Spain, and new concepts for public spaces and mixed urban districts in Vienna, London, and Nairobi. On the basis of these and other projects, Critical Care proves that architecture and urbanism can bring the planet back to life. The repair of the future has begun.

An exhibition of the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W), curated by Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny.

At the vernissage on February 7, 2020, Angelika Fitz, director of the Az W, Susanne Wartzeck, president of the BDA, and Matthias Böttger, DAZ, have spoken.

The exhibition is is supported by Fritz und Trude Fortmann-Stiftung.

Side events
February 24, 7 pm:
Talk “Architecture and Care” with Elke Krasny, Curator of the exhibition and professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Matthias Böttger, DAZ, and guests

Guided tours through the exhibition:
Friday, 28.2.2020, 5 pm
Sunday, 1.3.2020, 3 pm
Sunday, 22.3.2020, 3 pm

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Photos: Leon Lenk

Critical Care at DAZ Deutsches Architekturzentrum Berlin 

The exhibition Critical Care. Architecture for a Planet in Crisis deals with man-made ecological and social catastrophes and the resulting re-thinking of architecture and urbanism. „Critical Care” was curated by Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny in 2019 for Az W Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W).

 

www.daz.de
#CriticalCareDAZ #DAZBerlin

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DAZ_Critical-Care_Leon-Lenk-26-768x480 DAZ_Critical-Care_Leon-Lenk-22-768x480

Photos: Leon Lenk

Architekturzentrum Wien – Exhibition hall 2
Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna
Exhibition  25.04.2019–09.09.2019, daily 10:00-19:00

A planet in crisis. The earth in intensive care. Man-made environmental and social catastrophes are threatening to render the planet uninhabitable. The situation is critical and, dominated by the interests of capital, architecture and urbanism are caught up in the crisis. The exhibition ‘Critical Care’ shows how architecture and urbanism can contribute to repairing the future and keeping the planet and its inhabitants alive.

The exhibition ‘Critical Care’ is an appeal for a new approach, for a caring architecture and urbanism. 21 current examples from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, the USA and Latin America prove that architecture and urban development do not have to be subservient to the dictates of capital and the exploitation of resources and labour.

The relationships between economy, ecology and work are redefined in each of these projects. The instigators of this care are extraordinarily diverse groups of people: activists, lawyers, anthropologists, artists, but also city councils and companies, working together with architects and planners. Care is always concrete, the specific local conditions are the starting point, as the exhibition shows, including earthquake-proof and sustainable village development in China, flood protection through traditional low-carbon building techniques in Pakistan and Bangladesh, the diverse conversion of modernist buildings in Brazil and Europe, an ecological community land trust in Puerto Rico, the revitalisation of historical irrigation systems in Spain, new concepts for public spaces and mixed urban districts in Vienna, London and Nairobi. The exhibition ‘Critical Care’ shows how architecture and urbanism are helping to revive the planet. The repair of the future has begun.
 
Curators: Angelika Fitz, Elke Krasny
Exhibition architecture: the next ENTERprise
Exhibition graphics: Alexander Ach Schuh

 

Critical Care — Symposium
Fri 21.06.2019, 13:00-20:30
Architekturzentrum Wien – Podium

 

Critcial Care — Book
A book is being published by MIT Press to accompany the exhibition, ‘Critical Care. Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet‘, containing all 21 case studies as well as 12 essays by international authors on the topics of work, economy and ecology in architecture; edited by Angelika Fitz, Elke Krasny and Architekturzentrum Wien.

MIT Press
AzW Architekturzentrum Wien

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A public workspace of the Architekturzentrum Wien in the framework of the Vienna Biennale 2017
Curated by Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny

How can we repair the future? And how can architecture and urbanism take care of this? To test a Care + Repair urbanism the Architekturzentrum Wien is opening a public workspace at the Nordbahnhof, one of Vienna’s largest inner-city development areas with an impressive natural wasteland.

Here six internationally active teams of architects come together and, in tandem with local initiatives and experts, develop proposals for Care+Repair prototypes. How can very different kinds of urban knowledge be compiled and be used effectively in creating neighbourhood networks, new kinds of communal spaces, affordable housing for everyone, in ensuring the further use of existing materials or in taking care of nature in the city?

Public workspace with site visits, discussions, workshops
An exhibition on site shows projects by the invited teams, which illustrate how Care+Repair architecture interacts with the existing city and brings it into the future. Documentations of the work process on the Care+Repair prototypes are constantly added to this growing exhibition. An international symposium precedes the development of prototypes; throughout the duration of the project the public workspace offers site visits, discussions and workshops as an invitation to help test various approaches to repairing the future.

Nordbahn Halle as a temporary use
The public workspace of the AzW is anchored in the Nordbahn Halle, located beside the water tower on the old Nordbahnhof site, which is used temporarily by the partners of the research and development project Mischung: Nordbahnhof. An inviting place is created where various functions for the new urban district can be tested.

Curators: Angelika Fitz, Elke Krasny
Exhibition Design: Alexander Ach Schuh

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Care + Repair Program

• 20.06.2017: opening, 20:00
• 21.06.–31.07.2017: public workspace with a growing exhibition, tours, discussions, consultations with the teams of architects, workshops for adults, children and young people, and much more.
• 30.06.2017: Care + Repair symposium
• 09.07.2017: Care + Repair prototypes interim report

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Care + Repair actors
Teams of architects
• a-works Cristian Stefanescu/Bergen
• Gabu Heindl Architektur/Vienna
• Zissis Kotionis & Phoebe Giannisi/Volos
• Rotor/Brussels
• Meike Schalk/Stockholm
• Rosario Talevi/Berlin

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Local experts and initiatives
• Zuzana Ernst/Brunnenpassage
• Can Gülcü
• Martin Riesing
• Hansel Sato
• Beatrice Stude/IG lebenswerter Nordbahnhof
• Integrationshaus
• Academy of Fine Arts Vienna/Sieglinde Lang and Elke Krasny
• University of Applied Arts Vienna/Masterstudium Social Design/Brigitte Felderer
• Vienna University of Technology/design.build studio/Peter Fattinger

Drawing in Residence: studio ASYNCHROME

Care + Repair is part of the research and development project Mischung: Nordbahnhof that involves the following project partners: Institute for Housing and Design and the Sociology Department of Vienna University of Technology, Architekturzentrum Wien, Erste gemeinnützige Wohnungsgesellschaft Heimstätte, STUDIOVLAY, morgenjungs. This project receives support from the Climate and Energy Fund and is being carried out in the context of the Smart Cities Initiative. The temporary use of the Nordbahn Halle is made possible by the ÖBB-Immobilienmanagement GmbH.

In summer 2017 Care + Repair is part of the VIENNA BIENNALE 2017: Robots. Work. Our Future, which unites designers, architects and visual artists with the aim of creating a better tomorrow: MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Art / Contemporary Art, University of Applied Arts Vienna –Applied Innovation Laboratory, Kunsthalle Wien, Az W – Architekturzentrum Wien, Wirtschaftsagentur Wien, research partner: AIT Austrian Institute of Technology

 

Care+Repair – A Growing Exhibition at the Public Workspace by Az W — Eine wachsende Ausstellung im öffentlichen Arbeitsraum des Az W

Nordbahnhalle 21.6.–31.7.2017 — daily 2-10 pm / tägl 14.00–22.00

Care+Repair, in the context of the Vienna Biennale
How can we repair the future? And, how does this involve architecture and urbanism? For this exhibition and research project curated by Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny the Az W Architekturzentrum Wien establishes a public workspace at Nordbahnhalle in one of Vienna’s largest innercity urban development areas. [Directions]

At Nordbahnhalle, the following six international teams of architects, a-works – Cristian Stefanescu/Bergen, Gabu Heindl/Vienna, Zissis Kotionis+Phoebe Giannisii/Volos, rotorRotor/Brüssel, Meike Schalkk/Stockholm und Rosario Talevi/Berlin, show one of their projects relevant to Care+Repair in an exhibition design by Alexander Schuh.
The first two weeks of July each of the teams will work in tandem with one of the following local experts, Zuzana Ernst, Can Gülcü, Martin Riesing, Beatrice Stude, Brigitte Felderer and students of the Master Program Social Design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and Hansel Sato, to develop Care + Repair prototypes at Nordbahnhof.
The exhibition at Nordbahnhalle, consultation hours, walks, talks, discussions, and reading groups invite the public to join Care+Repair at Nordbahnhof. [Programme]

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Photo: Care Walk Nordbahnhof with Elke Krasny/Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2016

How can we repair the future? And how can architecture and urbanism contribute to this? Working in tandem with local experts six international teams of architects develop Care + Repair prototypes on site at the Nordbahnhof. An extensive programme invites people to visit the public work space next to the water tower.

How can very different kinds of knowledge be effectively combined to create neighbourhood networks, new types of communal spaces and housing, the use of existing materials and protecting nature in the city? An exhibition hosted in a former warehouse on location presents projects by the invited architectural teams that show how the Care + Repair approach interacts with the existing urban fabric, taking it into the future.

Documentation of the working processes for the Care + Repair prototypes is added to this growing exhibition on an ongoing basis. An international symposium launches the prototype development. With visits, discussions and workshops throughout the entire duration the public workspace extends an invitation to work jointly on finding solutions for repairing the future.

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This Place Is Pretty Good — 9 architectural approaches to Brăila Cristian Stefanescu. Photo Irina Pata.

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Care + Repair forms part of the VIENNA BIENNALE 2017: Robots. Work. Our Future, which unites designers, architects and visual artists by the joint aim to make a better tomorrow: The VIENNA BIENNALE is organized by the MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / contemporary Art, the University of Applied Arts Vienna, The Kunsthalle Wien, the Az W – Architekturzentrum Wien, and the Vienna Businness Agency with support from the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology as a non-university research partner.

A curatorial exhibition, research and education project

Opening | March 10, 2016, 7.00 p.m.
Exhibition dates | March 11–May 16,  2016
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, x hibit, Schillerplatz 3 1010 Vienna

Opening hours Tue–Sun, 10.00 a.m.–6.00 p.m., admission free
Special opening hours March 28 and May 1, 5, 16, 10.00 a.m.–6.00 p.m.

Curators | Elke Krasny and Barbara Mahlknecht

Historical Research | Ina Markova, Rosemarie Burgstaller and Sophie Bitter-Smirnov, Assistance | Eva Maria Eisner, Exhibition Graphics| Alexander Ach Schuh

With contributions by Tal Adler/Friedemann Derschmidt/ Elisabeth Samsonow/Karin Schneider/ Anna Szöke/Niko Wahl, Anna Artaker, Eva Blimlinger, Ramesch Daha, Zsuzsi Flohr/Benjy Fox-Rosen/Eduard Freudmann/Eva Reinold/Luisa Ziaja, Lena Rosa Händle, Minna L. Henriksson, Belinda Kazeem-Kaminski, Gila Kolb, Martin Krenn, Ina Markova/Rosemarie Burgstaller/Sophie Bitter-Smirnov, Verena Pawlowsky, Birgit Peter, Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber, Suely Rolnik, Dirk Rupnow, Hansel Sato, Anna Schürch, Sekretariat für Geister, Archivpolitiken und Lücken (Nina Höchtl and Julia Wieger), Bernadette Settele, Nora Sternfeld, Imayna Caceres/Pêdra Costa/Verena Melgarejo Weinandt from Wer hat Angst vor dem Museum?

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Elke Krasny und Barbara Mahlknecht, Unheimliche Materialien. Gründungsmomente der Kunsterziehung, 2016

On 9 July 1941, the decree of the Reich Ministry of Science, Education and Culture in Berlin went out to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna to establish the “Master School for Art Education and the Training of Secondary School Art Teachers.” 75 years later, the history of the founding of today’s Institute for Education in the Arts remains largely inscrutable. This is the starting point for the curatorial exhibition, research and education project, Uncanny Materials: Founding Moments of Art Education. The exhibition shows how historians, artists and curators work with archival materials and raise questions of the politics of history and memory.

During the rectorate of Alexander Popp (Nazi Party member since 1935), teacher training at the Master School for Art Education under the leadership of Ernst August Mandelsloh (Nazi Party member since 1932) was based upon the ideological foundations of Nazism. Philosophy and ideology were required examination subjects. The formation of Nazi art education is documented in the following materials from the University Archives of the Academy: personal status sheets, lists of students, course syllabi, examination regulations, minutes of professorial council meetings, budgets, master school prizes and material procurement lists.

Study at the Master School for Art Education included artistic subjects, electives, crafts and academic subjects. Subjects included painting, graphic arts, drawing and watercolor landscapes, general history, history of German literature, crafts and needlework, as well as the didactics of drawing, art history and art apprecia­tion. The Seminar Kunst­betrachtung (“Art Appreciation Seminar”) stamp makes it clear that the magazine Die Kunst im Dritten Reich (“Art in the Third Reich”), part of the holdings of the Academy library, had been used in the “training of art educators.” The editor of this magazine, which was published by the Nazi Party publishing house for the “monitoring of the entire spiritual and ideological training and education of the NSDAP,” was Alfred Rosenberg.

Based on 1941 documents of the University Archives of the Academy, the archival installation by curators Elke Krasny and Barbara Mahlknecht shows the personnel, physical, structural and ideological institu­tionalization of art education.

In 1941, the Nazi regime began planning the “Final Solution” and the systematic murder of Jews, Roma, Sinti, prisoners of war and political opponents. The German Luftwaffe attacked British cities. German troops marched into Greece and Yugoslavia. The German Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union. Theaters of war like Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, China, Japan, Thailand, Burma, Indochina and the Philippines, as well as the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, the entry of the USA into the war and the war declarations by Latin American countries illustrate the global dimen­sion of World War II in the year 1941.

For the artworks, the year 1941 is an essential reference point. Many of the activists and artists in this exhibition are former students of the Academy or work here today as instructors. The works articulate interventions in the memory of institutions, make reference to the normalization and disciplining of bodies through education, trace lesbian life during the Nazi regime, show the political involvement of women with Nazism and reflect current changes in “multidirectional memory” (Michael Rothenberg) as well as the importance of “migrants’ situated knowledge” (Ayşe Güleç) for the politics of history.

Artists: Anna Artaker, Ramesch Daha, Zsuzsi Flohr/Eduard Freudmann mit Benjy Fox-Rosen, Lena Rosa Händle, Minna L. Henriksson, ­Hansel Sato, Sekretariat für Geister, Archivpolitiken und Lücken (Nina Höchtl und Julia Wieger) und Imayna Caceres/Pêdra Costa/Verena Melgarejo Weinandt von Wer hat Angst vor dem Museum?

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Anna Artaker, KOMMENTIERTES JAHRBUCH 1941, 2016  (detail) 

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Lena Rosa Händle, Mädchen unter Bäumen, 2016

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Ramesch Daha, Unlimited History, 2013 (Installation view) 

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Zsuzsi Flohr und Eduard Freudmann, Ein Stein steht hier. Formationen des Erinnerns 1949–, 2016 (Installation view, detail)

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Hansel Sato, Parallaxe, 2016 (Installation view, detail)

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Minna L. Henriksson, Hidden, 2012/2013 (Installation view, detail)

[All photographs by by Lisa-Rastl © Akademie der bildenden Kueste, Wien]

On April 20 and 21, 2016, an international symposium with lectures, talks, and workshops will explore issues of institutional memory, National Socialist educational policy, the connections between politics of remembrance and artistic practices and question critically hegemonic histories in the field of art education.

Program

Wed, March 16, 2016, 4:00 p.m., x hibit
A Look Back into the Museum
Performance lecture with Imayna Caceres/Pêdra Costa/Verena Melgarejo Weinandt from Wer hat Angst vor dem Museum? (English)

A performative reflection on the role of the museum, its relation to historical wounds, othering, and dehumanization; and what is the role that the art education institution can have in breaking with historical continuities?

Tue, April 5, 2016, 1:30 to 5:30 p.m., x hibit
In Haunted Archives: (Post-)National Socialist Times, Decolonial Futures
Secretariat for Ghosts, Archival Politics, and Gaps (Nina Höchtl and Julia Wieger) Workshop (English)

By addressing the archive as a medium we attempt to work through its im/materiality. We invite participants to question the currency of National Socialism, colonialism and (de)coloniality in relation to specific archival materials from two rather different archives: the Archive of the Austrian Association of Women Artists VBKÖ and the University Archives of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, both haunted by National Socialism and coloniality. These archives hold documents evincing the institutions’ national socialist involvements as well as pointing towards traces of coloniality. At the same time, they bear omissions that make it necessary to read into their gaps. The workshop aims to address questions such as: How could we engage with the archival materials in order to examine the constellations between National Socialism, colonialism and coloniality? Could the analysis of said constellations help to explore possible forms of decolonial futures? In combination with decolonial studies, what do queer, feminist and postcolonial practices and theories bring to archival research? How could visual arts become a resource for decoloniality of archives? How could (de)coloniality question the meaning and method of comparativity and archival politics?

Symposium
Wed, April 20, 2016, 9:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Thur, April 21, 2016, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Studio Building of the Academy, Lehargasse 6–8, 1060
Vienna Turning (to) the Archive. Institutional Histories, Educational Regimes, Artistic Practices, and Politics of Remembrance (German/English)

The symposium examines questions on institutional memory, the National Socialist education policies, the relation of the politics of remembrance and artistic practice as well as the archive and its materials within critical historical research and art. Lectures, discussions, and workshops with contributions by Tal Adler/ Friedemann Derschmidt/Elisabeth Samsonow/Karin Schneider/Anna Szöke/Niko Wahl, Eva Blimlinger, Zsuzsi Flohr/Benjy Fox-Rosen/ Eduard Freudmann/Eva Reinold/ Luisa Ziaja, Minna L. Henriksson, Gila Kolb, Elke Krasny, Martin Krenn, Barbara Mahlknecht, Verena Pawlowsky, Birgit Peter, Sabine Plakolm-Forsthuber, Suely Rolnik, Dirk Rupnow, Anna Schürch, Bernadette Settele, Nora Sternfeld

Tue, May 3, 2016, 3:00 to 5:30 p.m., x hibit
Visiting Uncanny Materials. Founding Moments of Art Education.
Visit of the exhibition in the context of the course Kunst, Öffentlichkeit und Geschichtspolitik by Belinda Kazeem-Kaminski (German)

As part of the seminar on the didactics of art, the public and political history, the students will visit the Uncanny Materials: Founding Moments of Art Education exhibition and reflect on the work on and with the archive, including the associated politics of history and their inclusions and exclusions.

Tue, May 10, 2016, 5:00 p.m., meeting point: x hibit
1941: A Politics-of-History Walk through Vienna 
With students from the course Kunst und Öffentlichkeit taught by Elke Krasny (German)
The walk visits and discusses sites connected with the Nazi regime and the founding of the Master School for Art Education.

Wed, May 11, 2016, 11:00 a.m., x hibit
The Missing Monument – Commemoration in Progress
Workshop as part of Zsuzsi Flohr’s course Commemoration in Progress (English)
The seminar starts off exploring the different concepts of a “monument” and “memory;” it approaches the monument as a common knowledge and memory rather than only a physical object in space. The course deals with a specific historical event related to the very institution we are working at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna: In 1938, Jewish staff, students and professors were expelled from the Academy and additionally, in the same year Jews were expelled from Schillerplatz – on the initiative of the Academy. Schillerplatz had been of one the few public spaces that remained open to Jews until then. Although the traces of their histories have been made accessible there is no monument or manifestation to commemorate the expelled.

Fri, May 13, 2016, 4:00 p.m., x hibit
Curators’ tour (German/English)

Download Exhibition Booklet + Program, english

Download Ausstellungs Booklet + Veranstaltungsprogramm, deutsch

Exhibition, Nov 27, 2015 – January 17, 2016
Governor’s Palace (Knihovní sál)
Exhibition opening, Nov 26, 18:00
Moraviany gallery in Brno

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Sympozium

Termín konání: pátek 27. 11. 2015, 10.00-18.30
Místo konání: Moravská galerie v Brně, Místodržitelský palác, Barokní sál (přízemí), Moravské nám. 1a

Mezinárodní sympozium Hands-On Urbanism 1850-2012. Právo na zeleň je pořádáno se záměrem vztáhnout stejnojmennou výstavu k českému kontextu. Výstava prezentuje patnáct historických i současných příkladů vývoje měst spojených s fenoménem městského zahrádkaření. S razantní vlnou modernizace provázející průmyslovou revoluci čelila města po celém světě mnoha závažným výzvám. Obyvatelé však pokaždé dokázali najít osobitá řešení krizových situací a současně se podíleli na budování měst “zespoda”. Výstavní projekt v sobě spojuje historickou a aktivistickou perspektivu a ukazuje, že odlišný svět se dá “vypěstovat.”

Sympozium bude mimo jiné tematizovat i fenomén tzv. brněnských zahrádek, jejichž analogie najdeme např. v německýchSchrebergärtena které lze srovnávat i s jinými formami městského zahrádkaření prezentovanými ve vystavovaných studiích.

Sympozium sestává ze tří přednáškových a diskusních bloků, které se tématem zahrádek zabývají z různých úhlů pohledu. První, “politický” panel, se bude věnovat především brněnské situaci ve vztahu k městskému plánování a politice. Účast v této sekci přislíbili Martin Ander (náměstek primátora města Brna, Strana zelených), Michal Závodský (občanské sdružení Masarykova čtvrť), Tomáš Kaláb (KALÁB – stavební firma, spol. s r. o.) a Martin Říha (Zastupitelstvo města Brna, Komunistická strana Čech a Moravy, Český zahrádkářský svaz).

V druhém, “akademickém” panelu, budou na základě svých výzkumů městské zahrádkaření analyzovat Petr Gibas (Sociologický ústav Akademie věd ČR), Lucie Sovová (Fakulta sociálních studií Masarykovy univerzity) a Arnošt Novák (Fakulta humanitních studií Univerzity Karlovy v Praze).

V rámci třetího panelu se představí jednak autorka koncepce výstavy Hands-On Urbanism Elke Krasny (Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien), jednak architektka Gabu Heindel (Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien), architektka a badatelka Julia Wieger (Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien; Vereinigung bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs) a urbánní socioložka Mara Verlič (Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien), jejichž práce svým sociálním podtextem rezonují se základní myšlenkou výstavy – “right to the city”, tedy “právo na město” – spojenou se společenskou samoorganizací a plánováním měst “zespoda”.

Sympozium bude simultánně tlumočeno.

Program sympozia:

PRVNÍ PANEL (politický – Brno)

10.30-10.40
Michal Závodský, občanské sdružení Masarykova čtvrť

10.40-10.50
Tomáš Kaláb, KALÁB – stavební firma, spol. s r. o.

10.50-11.00
Martin Říha, Zastupitelstvo města Brna (Komunistická strana Čech a Moravy), Český zahrádkářský svaz

11.00-11.10
Martin Ander, náměstek primátora města Brna (Strana zelených)

11.10-12.00
Diskuze – moderátoři: Jakub Kořínek, místopředseda komise Rady města Brna             pro strategické a územní plánování (Žít Brno s podporou Pirátů), a Jan Kristek, Fakulta architektury Vysokého učení technického v Brně

12.00-13.00 Oběd

DRUHÝ PANEL (akademický – Česko)

13.30-14.00
Petr Gibas, Sociologický ústav Akademie věd ČR, v. v. i.,                                         Zahrádkové osady: městské prostory krocení a hýčkání přírody

14.00-14.30
Arnošt Novák, Fakulta humanitních studií Univerzity Karlovy v Praze, Potenciál městského zahradničení – od kosmetických činností k reálným alternativám

14.30-15.00
Lucie Sovová, Fakulta sociálních studií Masarykovy univerzity, Zahrádkářské kolonie jako prostory alternativní produkce potravin

15.00-15.30
Diskuze – moderátor: Jan Kristek, Fakulta architektury Vysokého učení technického v Brně

15.30-16.00 Přestávka

TŘETÍ PANEL (akademický – Rakousko)

16.00-16.30
Elke Krasny, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien,
Hands-On Urbanism

16.30-17.00
Gabu Heindl, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien,
Nezastavovací plán. Za nové plánování (a nástroje utváření) veřejného prostoru

17.00-17.30
Julia Wieger a Mara Verlič, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien,Commoning. Otázky z kuchyně

17.30-18.00
Diskuze – moderátor Jan Kristek, Fakulta architektury Vysokého učení technického v Brně

18.00-18.30
Shrnutí, závěr

Změna programu sympozia vyhrazena.

Venue | Gallery, Toni-Areal, ZHdK Zurich University of the Arts,
Level 4 + 5, Pfingstweidstrasse 96
Time | March 21–April 13, 2015
Opening | March 20, 2015, 7 p.m.

Organized by Eleonora Stassi, a collective dinner commemorates Lacy’s International Dinner Party on the occasion of the exhibition opening.

Opening hours | Tuesday–Thursday, 3–6 p.m.

«The International Dinner Party» was a simultaneous worldwide dinner happening created by Lacy and Pruess to publicize networks of feminist and women’s development organizations around the globe on the eve of Judy Chicago’s «The Dinner Party» exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.The project with its over 2000 participants from all parts of the world, demonstrated the extent of feminist organizing in a pre-Internet era.

Taken together, the International Dinner Party’s messages constitute an instant archive of feminist practice and thought. The «Suzanne Lacy’s International Dinner Party in feminist curatorial thought» exhibition joins Lacy’s 1979 art project with four contemporary collectives: ‹Aktion Arkiv›, ‹Queering Yerevan›, ‹radical practices of collective care› and ‹Red Min(e)d›. These collectives use different artistic and curatorial methods to combine activism, feminism, friendship, transnational collaboration, and critically involved spatial practices. In different ways, these collectives produce emergent feminist and queer feminist archives.

Curated by Elke Krasny

Invitation PDF download

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Installation view International Dinner Party by Suzanne Lacy and Linda Pruess (1979), Gallery, Toni-Areal, ZHdK Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, 2015. 

On March 14, 1979, «a simultaneous world wide dinner happened on the eve of Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Suzanne Lacy together with Linda Pruess mailed thousands of postcards inviting women from around the world to participate in the art project. Over 2000 women responded. They were invited to host dinners on the same evening that would honor a woman in their own region (…) Because of time differences, the work constituted a 24-hour performance At each dinner women collectively drafted a statement and sent it via telegram to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where the location of their dinner was marked by Lacy with a red inverted triangle on a twenty-foot wide black and white map of the world. The telegrams were displayed next to it. The project with its over 2000 participants from all parts of the world, demonstrated the extent of feminist organizing in a pre-Internet era.»

Taken together, the telegram messages constitute a world wide feminist archive of March 1979. The statements drafted by the women are an expression of international feminism. Their telegrams and letters reflect both specific local struggles and international networks of collaboration and exchange.

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Installation view Aktion Arkiv, Gallery, Toni-Areal, ZHdK Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, 2015.

«Aktion Arkiv (…) furthers participatory history writing. Unlike traditional archives, the association’s archive acts on site.» Helena Mattson, Meike Schalk and Sara Brolund de Carvalho initiated Aktion Arkiv, a not-for-profit association, in 2013. Starting from shared experiences of the restructuring of the Swedish model of the welfare state, the implementation of austerity measures, and the divide running through the contemporary immigrant Swedish society, they saw the need for a mobile archive.

Aktion Arkiv was invited by curator Maria Lind to contribute to the exhibition Tensta Museum: Reports from New Sweden on show at Tensta konsthall from October 2013 through May 2014. Tensta konsthall is located in a suburb of Stockholm that was built with the Swedish Million Program, an ambitious social housing program between 1965 and 1974. Today, many of the suburbs are identified negatively with the large late modernist housing ensembles and their mostly immigrant populations. Today, between 85-90% of the 19.000 residents of Tensta have immigrant background. For the exhibition Aktion Arkiv’s ambulant archive vehicle took off to Tensta. During the exhibition, the vehicle served for the exchange of information. It contained a library with books, photos, films, maps, a time line, a guest book, and archival material. It also housed a foldable table and seats, and functioned as a generator for discussion.»

Helena Mattson, Meike Schalk and Sara Brolund de Carvalho identified the year 1989 as a turning point, both globally and locally in Tensta. They connected the end of the cold war, the beginning neoliberalisation in Sweden, and the shift from labour migration to a global refugee migration with a 1989 international housing conference that had taken place in Tensta. Protagonists of the 1989 international housing renewal conference were invited to a witness seminar at the Tensta konsthall. It resulted in an intense dialogue and heated debates between the foreign guests and the public.

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Installation view Queering Yerevan, Gallery, Toni-Areal, ZHdK Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, 2015.

Queering Yerevan is self-described as «a collective of artists, writers, cultural critics and activists queering and using Yerevan as an experimental space.»

Starting from shared experiences of transitionality from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR, to the Republic of Armenia marked by post-Soviet globalization, exchanges with the Armenian diaspora, conditions of prevailing homophobia and patriarchy and the influence of the Armenian Orthodox church, the Queering Yerevan originally active under the name WOW, Women Oriented Women, began to work in 2007.

In addition to their own artistic and theoretical work, the three core members Arpi Adamyan, Shushan Avagyan, and lusine talalyan organize and provide infrastructures for artistic production and public exchanges. They put together events, exhibitions, happenings, film screenings, workshops, find funding, crowdfound, run a blog, and publish books. In 2008, they opened the garden of Zarbuyan 34 in Yerevan to host exhibitions and performances. The garden was a gathering space for exchanges with other artists, activists, curators, theorists, and with a wider audience. The garden was the site of producing, performing, exhibiting, exchanging, reading, translating, discussing, and playing.

In their first published book Queered: What’s To Be Done With Xcentric Art they combineexperimental, poetic, and theory-based writing with the e-mail correspondence that both instituted and constituted the formation of the loose local and diasporic network of queer and feminist Armenian artists and intellectual producers active around the QY collective. Filled with debates, conflicts and emotions, it also makes public the work of funding and the complex processes around funding applications. Different formats of writing meet and mix. So do the languages and alphabets of Armenian and English. «A two-year conversation» amongst different Qeering Yerevan members that took place on a listserver via e-mails was also included. Therefore, the book functions as an open-ended archive.

For the exhibition «Suzanne Lacy’s International Dinner Party in contemporary feminist thought» Queering Yerevan contributes a new film based on the experiences of the three years of the garden of Zarbuyan 34. Making use of documentary videos shot during exhibitions, performances, discussions, lectures, and presentations, the film, like their book, can be understood as a site of experimentation and exchange. The film, like the book, constitutes a complex, open-ended, queer feminist archive.

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Installation view radical practices of collective care, Gallery, Toni-Areal, ZHdK Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, 2015.

radical practices of collective care is self-described as a «collective research process investigating collective practices of care, reproduction and mutual aid as related to social movements.» It was initiated by Manuela Zechner, Julia Wieger and Bue Rübner Hansen in 2012. Starting from shared obsvervations «that the impact of the 2008 financial crisis could be felt strongly especially in Spain, Greece, Portugal and that austerity politics started to take effect, further dismantling the social institutions once provided by the (welfare)state throughout Europe» the three began their practice of a useful archive on «autonomous self-reproduction». Their collaborative work is based upon shared interests in «care, social reproduction/reproductive labor and, related to these questions, forms of organizing, food production and housing.» The first year their work was hosted and supported by the VBKÖ, the Austrian Association of Women Artists. The VBKÖ Vereinigung Bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs was founded in 1910. Today, the VBKÖ exists as a space for fostering contemporary feminist artistic agendas, offering a space for experiments and promoting political and activist work, in order to establish a new and vital connection between historical debates and contemporary queer, feminist art production.

In 2014, following an invitation by Katharina Morawek and co-curator Manuela Zechner they conducted a workshop with Territorio Doméstico at the Shedhalle Zürich in the framework of the exhibition How we want to live. Madrid-based domestic worker’s group Territorio Doméstico, is a collective of mostly migrant women working in private homes. Territorio Doméstico has been a powerful voice in defending the rights of domestic workers and a key reference for creative and community-based methodologies of organising.

Their blog: http://radicalcollectivecare.blogspot.co.at is a growing and open-ended archive. Here, they share knowledge on «autonomous, collective practices that enable us to create alternative structure of care; alternatives to those options offered by the state and its capitalist logics that determine our daily lives; practices that allow us to imagine a different everyday, and offer us tools to escape the effects of austerity politics.» For the exhibition «Suzanne Lacy’s International Dinner Party in contemporary feminist thought» radical practices of collective care contributes a new text-based work offering a reflection of their practice. Responding to questions posed via e-mail by Elke Krasny, radical practices of collective care collectively authored About the Radical Collective Care Practices Project – an interview text. It is presented in the form of two posters using black type on a red ground.

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Installation view Red Min(e)d, Gallery, Toni-Areal, ZHdK Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, 2015.

Red Min(e)d is self-identified as a «feminist curatorial group» active with(in) and beyond the post-Yugoslav space. The four members are Jelena Petrović and Katja Kobolt, Danijela Dugandžić Živanović, and Dunja Kukovec. Starting from shared experiences of transitionality from the Socialist Federalist Republic of Yugoslavia to post-socialist globalization and based upon shared beliefs in curating feminist knowledge, friendship, and solidarity, the group started Red Min(e)d and their ongoing Living Archive project in 2011. The Living Archive produces and shares knowledge on the intersections of feminism and contemporary art in the post-Yugoslav context.

«We have been working on the basis of solidarity and consensus. We are four and we are constantly shifting power between us (…) we have been building a truly safe space of belonging. Living Archive editions took place in Zagreb, Vienna, Stockholm, Sarajevo, and Ljubljana.» The Living Archive is an exhibition laboratory and a public interactive archive with several (non)working stations such as: a Audio/Video booth that documents and presents live artists talks, discussions, and interviews, the Perpetuum Mobile with a growing collection of video and other media art, and the Reading Room where one can fill out the feminism and art Questionnaire, and since the Sarajevo edition there is also the Curatorial Forum.

«What we have known since the first edition of the Living Archive is that most artists, curators, and authors, just like each one of us, have no salaries, no health insurance, have no savings, have no studios, no security and no plans for future. They produce hungry, tired, love sick, home sick, lonely, with friends, using the equipment and skills of their friends and giving their lives, time and energy to produce art knowing that most of the people around them believe that art is just a commodity.»

In 2013, Red Min(e)d were nominated as October Salon curators. Initiated in 1960 by the City of Belgrade, the Salon is the oldest and most prestigious institution of contemporary visual art in Belgrade. «We searched for a public museum or a gallery in Belgrade that would be big enough to host over 40 artistic positions, have at its disposal an operating license to be able to welcome the public, be open and available in autumn and have heating and electricity in the whole building.» They found neither a museum nor a gallery. They decided that the 54th October Salon would take place in the former KLUZ department store and factory, originally built as a military salon, currently owned by Zepter. The exhibition No One Belongs Here More than You appropriated the precarious space of a so-called private-public partnership afforded within the conditions of neoliberal predatory capitalism. During the October Salon exhibition they made manifest «the labor of art and the labor of curating.»

For the exhibition «Suzanne Lacy’s International Dinner Party in contemporary feminist thought» Red Min(e)d contributes a new work demonstrating their curatorial methodology. Their contribution comprises the following elements: Perpetuum Mobile Screening Act of Instinct by Elin Magnusson, video documentations of the two Living Archive Forums, No One Belongs Here More Than You and Creating The Feminist Archive Means Facing The Real To The Most Extent, and a wall paper based upon Saša Krekoš original visual identity developed for the 54th October Salon: No One Belongs Here More Than You integrating quotes from The Living Archive Questionnaire.

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Installation view Lecture Installation. On Epistemology and Historiography. Critical Curatorial Feminist Practice. (2014) by Elke Krasny, Gallery, Toni-Areal, ZHdK Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, 2015.   

This lecture addresses epistemology and historio­graphy with regard to a feminist historiography of curating, a history of feminist curating, and a feminist critique of the hegemonic history of curating.

The first part of the lecture constellates a number of key publications on feminist art history, feminist art theory, women’s history, and feminist political theory. Looked at together, the grouping of these publications allows an understanding for the changes and shifts with regard to key issues of concern for feminist scholarship. The publications chosen reflect a special interest in the politics of material conditions and artistic production in relationship to the politics of feminist appropriation, transgression, and transformation.

The second part of the lecture brings together a number of key exhibitions dedicated to women’s art and feminist art over a period of 99 years, beginning in 1910. The constellation clearly demonstrates a feminist curatorial project within curating’s history.

The third part of the lecture examines a number of key publications relevant to the emerging project of curating’s historiography. The mapping of these recent publications clearly demonstrates that there is one strand of curating’s historiography and another strand of curating’s feminist historiography. These two strands run in parallel, yet they rarely intersect or overlap. One could argue that the publications do in fact share the same past, yet they produce a very different historiographical account of this past. The past finds diverse uses in both feminist critique and feminist alliances.

The fourth part of the lecture describes and theorizes Suzanne Lacy’s «International Dinner Party» as a key moment in feminist curatorial thought. The «International Dinner Party» project links issues of feminist organizing, and networking with issues of the archive and future change.

This lecture was held in the frame of the Research Platform for Curatorial and Cross-disciplinary Cultural Studies, Practice-Based Doctoral Programme; A co-operation of the Department of Art at the University of Reading (UK) with the Postgraduate Programme in Curating at the Zurich University for the Arts, Institute Cultural Studies, Department Cultural Analysis (CH). Gasthaus zum Bären/ Museum, Zurich, March 7, 2014.