Sandro Droschl Livres

The catalogue accompanying the international group exhibition is dedicated to the mutually permeating relationship of the written word with art and film. The exhibition starts out at a point prior to actual production, where the fundamental concept of film is developed on the level of the written word and the screenplay, with cognisance of the representative function of language. It reflects an attempt of understanding exhibition space itself to be a projection surface for illuminating the material and cultural aspects related to the artistic production of moving images, or to how they were created to begin with.

Since the 1960s, artists in Hungary have displayed a penchant for abstraction when it comes to complex social conditions and efforts to enact political change. The abstracted visual language of Hungarian artists is the focus in the Künstlerhaus exhibition “Ábstract Hungary” curated by Ákos Ezer, a painter who in this catalog hastranslated the present-day reality in his home country through the framework of "abstraction." This theme is, in fact, a revival, as the Künstlerhaus has previously presented the group exhibition “Abstract Hungary” in 2017. With a sweeping selection of twenty-four Hungarian artists, including Imre Bak, Tamás Kaszás, Dóra Maurer, and Zsolt Tibor, the show was devoted to methods of abstraction of varying dialogical nature. The exhibition represented a broader narrative blueprint of the hotly debated term “abstraction” and showed both established and aspiring artistic positions, some of which were exhibited there in Austria for the first time. This exhibition catalogue seeks to expand these two eponymous projects, and consolidate the abstracted view of Hungary. Contributors Dávid Fehér, Áron Fenyvesi, Michael Wimmer, Mónika Zsikla Published by Sternberg Press and Künstlerhaus Halle für Kunst und Medien, Graz AT

This catalogue is published on the occasion of the two group exhibitions "The only performances that make it all the way..." and "Yes, but is it performable? Investigations on the Performative Paradox" which were shown at Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien in 2013 and 2016. Both exhibitions are united by an activating dialogical confrontation of recent, performative practices and performances dealing with the main works of historical forerunners. Throughout the respective exhibition, two to three works were added, while also parts and objects of the performances remained in the exhibition space, thus the exhibition set-up presented itself as transparent and could be experienced by the audience. Contributors Christian Egger, Sabine Weier, Tanja Widmann

This extensive publication is dedicated to the exuberant oeuvre of one of the most productive artists of Austrian provenance and international influence: the author, conceptual artist, musician, painter, short-film maker, video and performance artist, ballet choreographer, and stage designer Jörg Schlick (Graz, 1951–2005). This broad publication conceived as a retrospective brings together works from all phases of his diverse creative career and questions the myth and oeuvre of this uncompromising artist. The publication takes up a number of works that have for a long time been inaccessible to the public and includes the artist’s first catalogue raisonné. Thanks to his winning nature and his strong tendency to think in terms of networks, Schlick was for a long time Our Man in Graz for many artists such as Martin Kippenberger, Albert Oehlen, Cosima von Bonin, or Michael Krebber, among others. He knew how to unite, employ, and play off moving on the margins, imparting, and intervening: His intelligent and energetic play integrated all forms of artistic expression and their inherent potential for appropriation. Schlick always employed these clever ways of overcoming the original with a decisively creative feel for controversy and the available (multi)media of the time.

Two artists, two generations, two mediums: German artist and sound artist/computer composer Florian Hecker (b. 1975) and American Light Space artist John McCracken (1934-2011) together probe the experimental capacity of the white cube gallery space. Fiberglass-coated, monochrome 'planks' by McCracken spanning the floor and the walls of the building evoke a juncture between painting and sculpture, while Hecker's computer-generated sound pieces, piped into the rooms by suspended speakers, dramatize both space and time. Shifting boundaries and intersections of sculpture and sound interact with one another within the space of geometric, architectural, temporal and subjective formations. At the same time, the viewer/listener becomes more sensitized to the conditions, qualities, and degrees of intensity between the physical and the ephemeral. The small illustrated exhibition catalog includes installation shots, curatorial introduction by Christian Egger and comprehensive essay by curator João Ribas. The cover by Florian Hecker uses an 'objectness measure algorithm'

The catalog accompanying the international group exhibition is dedicated to the mutually permeating relationship of the written word with art and film. The exhibition starts out at a point prior to actual production, where the fundamental concept of film is developed on the level of the written word and the screenplay, with cognizance of the representative function of language. It reflects an attempt at understanding exhibition space itself to be a projection surface for illuminating the material and cultural aspects related to the artistic production of moving images, or to how they were created to begin with.

Austrian artist Valentin Ruhry (born 1982) uses light box installations to create works exploring their promotional function in advertising. The artist’s first monograph, this book accompanies his solo exhibition in Graz.

Die Monografie von Kerstin Cmelka spannt einen Bogen von ihren frühen Experimentalfilmen über fotografische Bearbeitungen von Filmstills und Werbebildern bis hin zu ihren Performances, die als 'Mikrodramen' bekannt sind. Der Begriff, geprägt vom Grazer Dramatiker Wolfgang Bauer, bezeichnet dramatische Miniaturen, die nur als Texte existieren und eine Aufführung auf der Bühne verweigern. Cmelka unterläuft diese Intention mit vielschichtigen, multimedialen Re-Inszenierungen historischer Stoffe aus Film, Kunst und Theater. In ihren Mikrodramen – Live-Performances und Performancevideos – werden Episoden aus bekannten Stücken (wie Ibsens 'Nora. Ein Puppenheim' oder Schnitzlers 'Liebelei'), Fernsehen oder Spielfilmen mit Laiendarstellern aus der Kunst- und Kulturszene nachgestellt. Diese Arbeiten sind reflexive Kommentare zu den Polen Kunst und Leben, wobei die Grenzen zwischen Inszenierung und Realität ins Wanken geraten. Cmelkas Ansatz schafft eine spannende Auseinandersetzung mit den Themen der Repräsentation und der Wahrnehmung, indem sie die Zuschauer dazu anregt, die Dynamiken zwischen Fiktion und Realität zu hinterfragen.

Nicole Six and Paul Petritsch bring everything they own - both items necessary for daily life and the results of their work - to the Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz. Here we find piles of toothbrushes, books, computers, beds, tables, chairs, clothing, cars, even apartment keys, bank cards and passports without any recognizable classification system. They have been stripped of their original function, listed in an inventory and made public in sculptural form. In assembling this collection, in the transfer and performative rearrangement of the objects, the artists highlight the mediality of things.