If Vienna sometimes feels like a sleepy metropolis on the bottom edge of the Alps, the art world of this hypermodern city – by the standards of the 1890s – has an annual ritual that charges it with new energy. The curated_by festival reminds the wider world that Vienna exists and advertises the local art scene by inviting international curators to organise exhibitions. This year’s theme is the incomprehensible word “viennaline”, and most curators have interpreted this to mean something essential about the city itself. Although visitors cannot see everything at once (and it’s hard not to stick to the balcony at Croy Nielsen, overlooking the Ringstrasse while sipping on an Oliver Croy-made gin and tonic), after making the rounds, it becomes clear that the most successful shows are about the experience of alienation in Vienna. Curators introduce us to foreigners who had striking experiences in the city (Galerie Crone, Galerie Nathalie Halgand, Sophie Tappeiner) as well as lonely figures who felt like foreigners in their own place and time (Galerie Martin Janda, Croy Nielsen, Gabriele Senn Galerie). This is especially important given Austria’s current ruling coalition between conservatives and right-wing extremists, but the curators wisely shy away from saying anything about this directly.
Simone Fattal Installation view at Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna Courtesy the artist and Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna; Photo: Simon Veres
At Galerie Hubert Winter, the exhibition curated by Lorenzo Giusti plays on the deep personal memories of the two artists on display. Simone Fattal’s great-grandfather was dragoman of the Austro-Hungarian empire in Damascus; her grandfather, Austrian consul in Syria. Her preciously textured ceramics look like recently-recovered ancient artefacts, like a premonition of what will one day happen to Vienna’s post-imperial splendour. Francesco Gennari’s Mausoleum for a Worm (2006), a cuboid made of layers of wood, is directly inspired by the artist’s two visits to Vienna’s Capuchin Crypt, the final resting place of the Austrian Habsburgs, in childhood and as an adult.
"These exhibitions are, ultimately, about the relation between what counts as ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ in Vienna"
Architectural forms also play a role at Galerie Martin Janda in Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna’s exhibition, which was inspired by legendary Viennese satirist Karl Kraus’s distinction between two types of vulgarity that are fused in Viennese style: German instrumentalism and Romance ornamentalism. Sean Lynch’s photographs and slide-show of the intricate façade of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History are set against Batia Suter’s Shelter Series (2012), black-and-white photographs of various types of buildings, including stone age monoliths, lowly barns, and satellite dishes.
Left: David Bestué Mecanismo (2017) Right: Batia Suter Shelter Series (2018) Courtesy: Galerie Martin Janda, Wien in collaboration with garcía galería, Madrid, for David Bestué
Saim Demircan’s show at Croy Nielsen also takes inspiration from literature, drawing on two chapters from W.G. Sebald’s novel Vertigo (1990). In one, an unnamed narrator, whose biography resembles that of the author, makes multiple trips from Vienna to Venice; another is an account of Franz Kafka, referred to only as “Dr. K”, as he travels to a sanatorium in Riva on the shore of Lake Garda. With over twenty-two works and books by fifteen artists and authors including Kafka, Mark Camille Chaimowicz, and Martin Kippenberger, the show is visually overwhelming; viewers need a personal explanation of the connections between works, and even then its secrets might not be revealed straight away. Only later does it become clear that Demircan is using Vienna as the central pin in an imaginary map connecting other places, times, experiences, and practices. One example is how Dario Wokurka’s Meditating on Inheritable Estates II (2018), a mountain range in portrait form, acts as an illusory window to suggest what Kafka’s dying sight at Riva might have been.
Dario Wokurka Meditating on Inheritable States II (2017) Fron: Marina Sula Faustidio (2018) Courtesy the artist and Croy Nielsen, Vienna; Photo: Kunst-dokumentation.com
Another complex display, Cedric Fauq’s “The Share of Opulence; Doubled; Fractional” at Sophie Tappeiner is about the African-American organic chemist Percy Julian. Julian studied at the University of Vienna from 1929 to 1931 and was amazed at how well he was treated there compared to in segregated America. He later went on to synthesise oestrogen and testosterone from the protein structure of soy beans, a discovery with profound implications for the struggles of transgender people today. Each artist in the show – some British, some French; some black, some white – produced an installation, sculpture, or video reflecting on Julian’s otherness and discoveries, contextualised by biographical information, scientific papers, and archival documents.
Like Julian, Malaysian surgeon Arumugam Viswalingam, the subject of Mark Rappolt’s “Now Forever” at Crone, came to Vienna in the 1930s and found that he experienced less prejudice than in the racialised hierarchies at home. Rappolt juxtaposes Viswalingam’s life with that of provocative theatre and film director Christoph Schlingensief, whose Big Brother -style action Bitte Liebt Österreich (2000) satirised public attitudes towards outsiders the last time right-wing populists held power in Austria. Rappolt places former advertising posters produced by the Viennese tourist board at intervals between the works, suggesting that we are duty bound to critique these attitudes (“now”) but accept that the prejudices run deep (“forever”). This thought also appears at Galerie Nathalie Halgand, where Attilia Fattori Franchini reflects on alienation by using twenty-year-old travel notes of African-American multimedia artist Tony Cokes. “In a foreign place with non-native people, you feel totally safe,” reads one note, “like you’re in the future.”
Installation view of “The Share of Opulence; Doubled; Fractional” curated by_Cédric Fauq at Sophie Tappeiner
These exhibitions are, ultimately, about the relation between what counts as “inside” and “outside” in Vienna. Fauq, Franchini, and Rappolt reflect on how outsiders have come “in” to post-imperial Vienna, while Demircan’s show begins with journeys “out” into the wider Austro-Hungarian empire, a milieu which marks invisible internal marks on the works at Galerie Martin Janda and Galerie Hubert Winter. Producing sensitive and sometimes risky exhibitions like these not only leaves the receptive viewer with plenty to learn, but also shows the strength of thinking and acting in dark times.
curated by_vienna
"Viennaline"
curatedby.at
14.9. – 13.10.2017
MAX L. FELDMAN is a writer based in Vienna.
Installation view of "Now Forever" curated by_Mark Rappolt at Galerie Crone Courtesy Galerie Crone; Photo: Lukas Dostal
Exhibition view of "vienna waits for you – take care!" curated by_Markus Mittringer at Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Wien Photo: © Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman/Lena Kienzer
Sean Lynch A blow by a blow account of stonecarving in Oxford (2013) Courtesy Galerie Martin Janda, Wien
Installation view of "Panta Rhei" curated by_Julia Garimorth at Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder Courtesy the gallery
Installation view of "Elevation" curated by_Robert Müller at Galerie Emanuel Layr Photo: Maximilian Anelli-Monti
Installation view of "Performance – Körper als Kontinuum in der Kunst" curated by Georg Elben at Gabriele Senn Galerie Courtesy Gabriele Senn Galerie; Photo: Iris Ranzinger