Franz Graf
»See What Sees You«
Among other things, with exhibits by Franz Graf and Marc Adrian, Estera Alicehajic, Theo Altenberg, Ferdinand Andri, Anouk Lamm Anouk, Nobuyoshi Araki, Magnús Árnason, Johanna Arneth, Snorri Ásmundsson, Rudolf Bacher, Franz Barwig the Elder, Lothar Baumgarten, Selina de Beauclair, Tjorg Douglas Beer, Joseph Beuys, Binär, Herbert Boeckl, Anna-Maria Bogner, Herbert Brandl, Geta Brătescu, Arik Brauer, Günter Brus, William S. Burroughs, James Lee Byars, John Cage, Nina Canell, Ernst Caramelle, Anna Ceeh, Larry Clark, Tamara Dinka, Iris Dostal, Marcel Duchamp, Dejan Dukic, Rudolf Eb.er & Joke Lanz, Valie Export, Helmut Federle, Ernst Fuchs, Walther Gamerith, August Gaul, Ron Geesin & Roger Waters, Gelitin, Liam Gillick & Corinne Jones, Allen Ginsberg, Sara Glaxia, Gottfried Goebel, Karl Iro Goldblat, Martin Grandits, Fritz Grohs, Mario Grubisic, Kristján Guðmundsson, The Guerilla Art Action Group, Tatjana Hardikov, Friedrich Hartlauer, Carl Michael von Hausswolff, Gunnhildur Hauksdóttir, Rudolf Hausner, André Heller, Herbert Hinteregger, Benjamin Hirte, Marcel Houf, Françoise Janicot, Ali Janka, Ana Jelenkovic, Robert Jelinek, Hildegard Joos, Donald Judd, Tillman Kaiser, Felix Kalmar, Allan Kaprow, Mike Kelley, Didi Kern & Philipp Quehenberger, Richard Kern, Leopold Kessler, Martin Kippenberger, Imi Knoebel, Peter Kogler, Franz Koglmann & Bill Dixon, Zenita Komad, Svetlana Kopystiansky, Brigitte Kowanz, Angelika Krinzinger, Elke Silvia Krystufek, Zofia Kulik, Doreen Kutzke, Marcellvs L., Bruce LaBruce, Eskil Loftsson, Daniel Löwenbrück, Sarah Lucas & Julian Simmons, Victor Man, Mark Manders, Michaela Math, marshall!yeti, Otto Maurer, Paul McCarthy, Andrew M. McKenzie, Bjarne Melgaard, Cecilie Meng, Merzbow, Rune Mields, Chiara Minchio, Milan Mladenovic, Klaus Mosettig, Otto Muehl, Wladd Muta, Adam Mühl, Gina Müller, Mario Neugebauer, Hermann Nitsch, Oswald Oberhuber, Erik Oppenheim & David Kelleran, Charlemagne Palestine, Manfred Pernice, Goran Petercol, Rade Petrasevic, Raymond Pettibon, Walter Pichler, Begi Piralishvili, Elisabeth Plank, Natascha Plum, Rudolf Polanszky, Franz Pomassl, Arnulf Rainer, Raionbashi / Krube., Konrad Rapf, Jason Rhodes, Paul-Julien Robert, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Dieter Roth, Fiona Rukschcio, Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck, Alexander Ruthner, Gerhard Rühm, Kurt Ryslavy, Nino Sakandelidze, Georg Sallner, Ed Sanders, Markus Schinwald, Eva Schlegel, Conrad Schnitzler, Philipp Schöpke, Claudia Schumann, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Frederike Schweizer, Björn Segschneider, Jim Shaw & Benjamin Weissman, Jörg Siegert, Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson, Tamuna Sirbiladze, Linnéa Sjöberg, Dominik Steiger, Nino Stelzl, Curt Stenvert, Alexander Stern, Rudolf Stingel, Martina Stoian, Johannes Stoll, Ida Szigethy, Lilli Thießen, Bjarni H. Thórarinsson, Manfred Unger, Franz Vana, Jannis Varelas, Walter Vopava, Wolf Vostell, Klaus Weber, Peter Weibel, Lois Weinberger, Herwig Weiser, Wendy & Jim, Adam Wiener, Ingrid Wiener, Oswald Wiener, John Wiese, Judith Weratschnig, Stefan Wirnsperger, Eva Wohlgemuth, Helmut Wolech, Iwona Zaborowska, Thomas Zipp and Heimo Zobernig
21er Haus, Vienna
January 29 — May 25, 2014
Franz Graf is a thoroughly distinctive artist. He cannot be pigeonholed in any of the usual categories, and his works, indeed his oeuvre, cannot easily be described. He is neither a conceptual artist, painter prince, misunderstood genius, an artist of the state or of the market, nor even a critic of the institutions, and yet he has something of all these traits – and is always one step ahead when it comes to eluding all-too conventional structures and the classifications that go hand in hand with them.
After training under Oswald Oberhuber at the University of Applied Arts Vienna from the mid to late 1970s, he worked with Brigitte Kowanz until 1984 on the fringes of the Neo-Geo movement. In the following years, he evolved a visual language of his own, which, though extremely reduced, has sometimes been described as „expressive geometry“(1). Addressing the most fundamental element of drawing – a dark line on a pale ground – he developed a vocabulary that is essentially based on the juxtaposition of contrasts. Geometric forms and ornamental symbols dominate his works, which became increasingly corporeal towards the end of the 1980s. At the same time, he broadened his technical range, focusing more on the carrier materials such as tracing paper and on the installative integration of the work. He rolled back the classic boundaries of media and art: drawings became sculptures, sculptures became furnishings, furnishings became installations and installations, in turn, became spatial ornamentations. And amongst all this, painting also took on an increasingly important role. Graf is constantly expanding his field of action: curating, music, writing, events, and even teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 1997 to 2006.
This intermeshing of art and life is also reflected in his works. Franz Graf sets in motion a visual machine that devours everything that crosses its path. It is like a Machine Célibataire that drives the artist on to become a collector, archaeologist, documentarist, explorer and archivist, creating a world of his own through the synthesis of all his findings. They undergo a seemingly alchemistic process that orders things anew and melds the resulting structures into an idiosyncratic reality. In this universe, all things are one and exist side by side on equal terms, yet are also interwoven. A need for symmetry appears to underpin this cosmos, suggesting a pure and higher order in which moralistic, pecuniary and even worldly laws no longer hold sway. This world order is beyond good and evil and is subject to no ideals or hierarchies, following only the transcendental and the dualism of black and white.
Yet, for all of this, Graf remains true to drawing. Its reductionist form of portrayal permits abstraction in conjunction with depiction, which lends the drawings a certain autonomy from subject matter and signification alone. And this is precisely where Graf begins, using the natural patterns of perception – the instinctive quest for something recognisable – to alienate what we discern from our own reality, allowing it to disintegrate into strokes, lines and planes, as well as ideas and signs. The signifier becomes as visible as the signified and as signifying itself.
Franz Graf pursues this approach on a grand scale in his exhibition at 21er Haus. Processes of perception are unleashed, a cosmos formulated. „See what sees you“ is the motto of this show, which not only showcases Graf‘s works, but which also lays claim to presenting the current state of an artistic universe and putting it into context.
For his exhibition at 21er Haus, Graf dovetails the many aspects of his oeuvre in a new way, playing out his typical game with emptiness and fullness, black and white, delicate detail and iconic grandeur, archaic and modern. Specially created works can be seen here alongside older works, which he has placed together with works by contemporary artists both international and local, as well as pieces from the Belvedere collection and from his own private collection.
Some of his works are figurative. All are black and white, but some also abstract and ornamental. Some are based on circles, almost like mandalas or meditative objects. Others consist of combinations of letters that form fragments of words or quotes, the meaning of which can suddenly emerge, only to be lost from grasp just as quickly and form new meanings. Graf’s handling of letters echoes his handling of figurative subjects. His distinctly eclectic approach in combining elements lends them new form that emerges through his material poetry. The cultural technique of copy-and-paste is one of his stock stylistic devices – appropriation and alienation his accomplices, structure and repetition his accessories. Drawings, photographs, audio works, canvases, prints and everyday objects dovetail in Graf’s formation of open systems that are more akin to aesthetic spaces of experience than multimedia installations.
In the exhibition, eyes gaze at the viewers. Their unsettling gaze is at once seductive, coy, accusatory, fearful and profound. This is not about the eye of Big Brother, but about the image at eye level. Like mirrors, they reflect the gaze back upon the viewer with an intensity that makes seeing the theme in itself: triggering an awareness of our own ways of seeing and, consequently, of our perceptions and apperceptions.
But the title „See what sees you“ also implies reciprocity. It suggests that you can not only see, but be seen (and read) as well. The question this raises was indeed the starting point for the concept of this exhibition: is there a way of seeing that does not involve being distracted by the presentation of our own gaze and the ossification of representative gestures? Practical experience of exhibition openings tells us that there is no escaping this. Either we get used to the idea of coming back alone to have a look, or we try to act naturally and risk being distracted. For the exhibition, we decided to take that risk – by showing the work with all it entails and encompasses, rather than isolating and stylising it.
The framework for this is an architecture of elements normally used for scaffolding or stage construction. The display consists of carrier material that is quite literally used to visualise structures that would otherwise remain in the background. In this respect, there is a symbiosis between the presentation itself and the display of the construct of representation. The sum of the parts not only adds up to an exuberant exhibition in the main room of 21er Haus, but also creates a stage on which Franz Graf constantly expands his installation throughout the duration of the show, by repositioning and rehanging pieces, and with regular performances and collaborative art productions. Visitors thus step onto a stage on which, together with Graf, guest artists and inter-related works, they themselves become actors in a process of ongoing adaptation to an ever-changing situation. But is there more to it than simply being there? Can the exhibition break free from the patterns of representation and offer direct, sensory access to, or perhaps even allow entrance into, the world of Franz Graf? Blessed indeed are they that „have not seen, and yet have believed“(2).
(1) Donald Kuspit, in Franz Graf (exhibition catalogue, Galerie nächst St. Stephan, October 22 – November 26, 1988), Vienna 1988
(2) Gospel according to St John, 20:29
»Flirting with Strangers«
Herbert Albrecht, Franz Amann, Martin Arnold, Richard Artschwager, Jo Baer, Franz Barwig the Elder, Georg Baselitz, Herbert Bayer, Herbert Boeckl, Norbertine Bresslern-Roth, Cäcilia Brown, Gerard Byrne, John Chamberlain, Lovis Corinth, Josef Dabernig, Svenja Deininger, Thomas Demand, Verena Dengler, Carola Dertnig, Gerald Domenig, Heinrich Dunst, Angus Fairhurst, Gelitin, Bruno Gironcoli, Carl Goebel the Younger, Roland Goeschl, Dan Graham, Robert Gruber, Julia Haller, Swetlana Heger & Plamen Dejanoff, Alois Heidel, Damien Hirst, Benjamin Hirte, Christine & Irene Hohenbüchler, Kathi Hofer, Lisa Holzer, Judith Hopf, Bernhard Hosa, Kurt Hüpfner, Christian Hutzinger, Lukáš Jasanský & Martin Polák, Anna Jermolaewa, Ernst Juch, Birgit Jürgenssen, Tillman Kaiser, Luisa Kasalicky, Michael Kienzer, Erika Giovanna Klien, Jakob Lena Knebl, Kiki Kogelnik, Nathalie Koger, Peter Kogler, Oskar Kokoschka, Cornelius Kolig, Elke Krystufek, Hans Kupelwieser, František Kupka, Maria Lassnig, Sonia Leimer, Anita Leisz, Sherrie Levine, Thomas Locher, Sarah Lucas, Marko Lulić, Christian Mayer, Dorit Margreiter, Christoph Meier, Carl von Merode, Alois Mosbacher, Matt Mullican, Edvard Munch, Flora Neuwirth, Oswald Oberhuber, Nick Oberthaler, Walter Obholzer, Giulio Paolini, Elisabeth Penker, Rudolf Polanszky, Lisl Ponger, Antonín Procházka, Florian Pumhösl, Bernd Ribbeck, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Anton Romako, Anja Ronacher, Wally Salner, Christian Schwarzwald, Johannes Schweiger, Martina Steckholzer, Edward Steichen, Rudolf Stingel, Gerold Tagwerker, Rosemarie Trockel, Esin Turan, Salvatore Viviano, Johannes Vogl, Maja Vukoje, Rebecca Warren, Christoph Weber, Letizia Werth, Franz West, Sue Williams, Robert Wilson, Erwin Wurm, Otto Zitko, Heimo Zobernig; curated by Severin Dünser and Luisa Ziaja
21er Haus, Vienna
September 9, 2015 — January 31, 2016
Why not, for once, look at a collection as a fabric of relationships among things and their encounters? And as an opportunity that, as Baudrillard put it, might establish an ‘everyday prose of objects, […] a triumphant unconscious discourse’? Picking up on this idea, Flirting with Strangers, the autumn exhibition on the ground floor of the 21er Haus, stages an exciting, playful, and sometimes also unexpected encounter of works from the collection. Is it necessary to have many things in common to “strike up a conversation”, or is it rather individual peculiarities that will ignite a spark?
Works of art are objects to which a particularly high degree of individuality is ascribed: none exactly resembles the other, and they are characterised by their uniqueness. This is why they are usually also considered worth collecting. Once chosen, they become one among many, which is one of the paradoxes inherent to collecting of comparing what is incomparable. Museum collections are generally associated with the systematisation of objects according to scientific categories and art historical classification criteria that are apt to establish connections, make sense, and, as powerful entities of interpretation, produce authoritative knowledge. And exhibitions are, after all, organisations and arrangements of knowledge, which, however, also have the potential to conceive alternative interpretations and that enable actualisation.
Flirting with Strangers presents works by more than one hundred artists in a show that seeks to rethink the format of a collection exhibition: it deliberately unfolds along achronological lines and independent of the history of styles while occasionally emphasising seemingly negligible aspects or similarities that might be far fetched – with the intention to sharpen our focus on detail and the individual piece and at the same time to propose possible unexpected relationships among things.
»Sign – Image – Object«
Marc Adrian, Ei Arakawa & Nikolas Gambaroff, Richard Artschwager, Josef Bauer, Martin Beck, Mel Bochner, Marcel Broodthaers, Gerard Byrne, Heinrich Dunst, Jenny Holzer, Lisa Holzer, Johanna Kandl, Michael Kienzer, Joseph Kosuth, Hans Kupelwieser, Thomas Locher, Oswald Oberhuber, Michael Part, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Anja Ronacher, Gerhard Rühm, Allen Ruppersberg, Stefan Sandner, Daniel Spoerri, Josef Hermann Stiegler, Josef Strau, Thaddeus Strode, Peter Weibel, Lawrence Weiner, Heimo Zobernig, Leo Zogmayer
in the context of »Collection #3«, 21er Haus, Vienna, 2013
21er Haus, Vienna
June 21 — November 10, 2013
A museum collection reflects more than the historical vicissitudes of art purchasing policy: it also brings the programmatic direction of an institution into focus. At the 21er Haus, Austrian art is shown in an international context. Contemporary work is at the center of attention, supported by historical artworks which together with it represent a line of argument for its relevance in the here and now.
In order to make visible the diversity of the museum’s holdings, to rediscover artworks and think toward new relationships, the collection is reorganized at regular intervals. In the third presentation of the collection at the 21er Haus, the artworks are grouped into three areas, each of them centering on three concepts narrating localized histories of ideas that extend into the present.
Under the title Freedom – Form – Abstraction, works of Austrian postwar modernism are juxtaposed with contemporary artistic positions, demonstrating commonalities in both content and form. A second area directs the gaze toward the blurring of boundaries between Sign – Image – Object, thereby focusing attention on the structure of reception and its translation into language. Finally, Body – Psyche – Performativity addresses social norms and their transgression in art since the 1960s.
The area Sign – Image – Object attempts to capture the fruitful moments in which the boundaries between image and sign, writing and language, object and idea are transgressed.
What happens when image and sign collide, both being seen and read at the same time? What happens when an object no longer coincides with the beholder’s idea or mental representation of it? Is an image an object, a space of illusion, or itself a sign? When does a sign become an ornament, and can it completely lose its meaning when it is isolated or recontextualized? Can language be depicted without writing, or does it then remain a mute visualization?
To be explored is the interplay between signified and signifier, in other word between that which labels and that which is labeled, and the ambiguous status of sign, image and object, which has been thematized in art since the Conceptual movement of the 1960s. Not only do these queries address art and its reality; they also direct attention toward the process of perception. Outlines emerge of the ways in which we translate what we see into language, and of the interactions that are triggered in our thoughts by what we have seen.
»Zeichen – Bild – Objekt«
Marc Adrian, Ei Arakawa & Nikolas Gambaroff, Richard Artschwager, Josef Bauer, Martin Beck, Mel Bochner, Marcel Broodthaers, Gerard Byrne, Heinrich Dunst, Jenny Holzer, Lisa Holzer, Johanna Kandl, Michael Kienzer, Joseph Kosuth, Hans Kupelwieser, Thomas Locher, Oswald Oberhuber, Michael Part, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Anja Ronacher, Gerhard Rühm, Allen Ruppersberg, Stefan Sandner, Daniel Spoerri, Josef Hermann Stiegler, Josef Strau, Thaddeus Strode, Peter Weibel, Lawrence Weiner, Heimo Zobernig, Leo Zogmayer
im Rahmen von »Sammlung #3«
21er Haus, Wien
21. Juni — 10. November 2013
Eine Kunstsammlung spiegelt nicht nur die Geschichte einer oft wechselvollen Ankaufspolitik wider, ihre Präsentation verdeutlicht gleichzeitig auch die Programmatik einer Institution. Im 21er Haus wird österreichische Kunst im internationalen Kontext gezeigt. Zeitgenössisches steht im Zentrum und wird unterstützt von historischen Arbeiten, die gemeinsam eine Beweisführung für ihre Relevanz im Hier und Jetzt darlegen. Um die Vielseitigkeit des Bestandes sichtbar zu machen, Werke wiederzuentdecken und neue Nachbarschaften anzudenken, wird die Sammlung in regelmäßigen Abständen neu aufgestellt. In der dritten Sammlungspräsentation im 21er Haus umkreisen die Werke in drei Bereichen jeweils drei Begriffe, die lokale Ideengeschichten bis in die Gegenwart erzählen.
Unter dem Titel Freiheit – Form – Abstraktion werden Werke der österreichischen Nachkriegsmoderne zeitgenössischen Positionen gegenübergestellt und inhaltliche wie formale Gemeinsamkeiten aufgezeigt. Ein zweiter Bereich lenkt den Blick auf das Verschwimmen der Grenzen zwischen Zeichen – Bild – Objekt und verweist dabei auf die Struktur der Rezeption und ihre Übersetzung in Sprache. Körper – Psyche – Performanz handelt schließlich von sozialen Normierungen und deren Überschreitung in der Kunst seit den 1960er-Jahren.
Der Bereich Zeichen – Bild – Objekt versucht den fruchtbaren Moment zu fassen, wenn die Grenzen zwischen Bild und Zeichen, Schrift und Sprache, Objekt und Idee überschritten werden. Was passiert, wenn Bild und Zeichen aufeinandertreffen, zeitgleich gelesen und gesehen werden? Was, wenn ein Objekt nicht mit der Idee oder der Vorstellung, die man davon hat, übereinstimmt? Ist das Bild ein Objekt, ein Illusionsraum oder selbst ein Zeichen? Wann wird das Zeichen zum Ornament, und kann es überhaupt seine Bedeutung verlieren, indem man es isoliert oder neu kontextualisiert? Und kann man Sprache darstellen, ohne zu schreiben, oder bleibt es dann bei einer stummen Visualisierung? Es geht um das Spiel zwischen Signifikat und Signifikant, also Bezeichnetem und Bezeichnendem, und deren ungeklärten Status zwischen Zeichen, Bild und Objekt, der seit der Konzeptkunst der 1960er-Jahre thematisiert wird. Aber mit diesen Fragestellungen werden nicht nur Kunst und ihre Realität verhandelt, sondern wird auch auf den Prozess der Wahrnehmung verwiesen. Dabei wird deutlich, wie wir das Gesehene in Sprache übersetzen und welche Wechselwirkungen in unserem Denken über das Betrachtete ausgelöst werden.