Hollerer makes conceptual extractions from urban space – yet there is no way of a back transfer as he abstracts to signs and thinks in and with the exhibition space. An artist portrait. The exhibition with works of Clemens Hollerer at CastYourArt runs until January 8, 2011.

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The broken symmetries to be found on construction sites are Clemens Hollerers source of inspiration - the states of transition, the destruction, chaos, mistakes and surprises, but also the clear structures, patterns and colors. more »

Warhol, Newman, Wool “Barney is now at another party.“ When exhibitions show artistic developments in a larger context, it is a good thing for every visitor. Such an exhibition can be seen at the moment at Kunsthaus Graz. Under the curatorial direction of Peter Pakesch, the exhibition “Warhol, Wool, Newman” bridges the gap between abstract American expressionism, minimal and pop art, and some of the art of our time. This podcast was realised with the kind support of UNIQUA ArtCercles.

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Abstract American expressionism brought a new image and understanding of space into the world of art. The viewer played a central role here, because the work was no longer possible without his/her presence. In Barnett Newman’s work, this becomes noticeably clear. It positions the viewer as the counterpart and participant in the space of the image and confronts him/her with a physical reality. more »

Public space is both a battlefield and stage for those visions and ideas in which a society puts its faith. At a distance, it also discloses that which is blindly supported in this society. One can survey it as if it were a kind of societal relief, or a contemporary witness of history, as it reveals both conscious and unconscious orders and structures.

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In those times when the common faith in ideas is particularly strong, signs of this faith are placed into public space in the form of monuments which make beliefs concrete to us, alert us of the destructive power of faith, and signal the successful displacement of other beliefs. more »

… this is Eugen Lendl’s answer to the question about what that special quality is that predestines one for the occupation of the gallery owner. However, “most of them originate from rich parents”, he says.

About the development of the gallery. Part 1

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About the relation between artists and galery owners in time. Part 2

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As a gallery owner, Eugen Lendl has experienced the limits of the handling of art, the artists with special gifts, and the impressive consistency and power of expression, which enriches his life. He is also familiar with the commercial aspects of art and its value, which translates into a lasting relationship with the customer. more »

As the artistic duo SIGNA, Signa Soerensen and Arthur Koestler provide our world with replicas of itself. They install reproductions of the original, three-dimensional parallel worlds, habitable cartographies: a run-down flophouse is the setting for the hopeless world of six Eastern European prostitutes who are ruled by their social degredation and the brutality of their pimps — a mystical nightmare universe consisting of forty areas filled with religious, political and social rituals. The wing of a closed-off psychiatric station, led by the female doctor, Dorine Chaikin, and her team, subject amnesia patients to a procedure that includes welfare service and discipline.

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The parallel worlds of SIGNA are replicas which have lost their historical and geographical attributes. The colors, costumes, furniture, in their tiniest details: these seamless properties offer temporal and regional associations, but the where and when remains indefinite. more »

Misfortune comes in various forms, as well as the possibilities for avoiding misfortune: saving money or watching TV, loving or eating up, or perhaps just sleeping together. Cultivating moderation, recognizing can also help, sometimes deceiving, patching things up in emergencies in order to hold things together, making it big, or indeed, saving the world after all? In its 41st year, Steirischer Herbst, the contemporary art festival in Graz, is in search of strategies of avoiding misfortune.

About programing the festival Steirischer Herbst

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The leitmotif of the festival

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The art of avoiding misfortune in Steirischer Herbst 2008

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On election posters, smiling faces and simplistic strategies of avoiding misfortune can end up belittling the most complex of issues. Every advertisement promises a magic cure for avoiding misfortune: whiter teeth, low-fat sausages, power brakes. But there is something in the wind which still beckons us to approach things critically, a skeptical belief prevails that we are still able to do something. more »

To put surfaces into the spatial. To construct three-dimensionality which we in turn flatten under our gaze. The transference of the spatial into the visual and vice versa - which opens up possibilities of the sculptural - is what fascinates the artist Markus Wilfling.

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For him, it is the conditioned perspective on everyday things which challenge him artistically. With his work, he shakes up our usual perceptions, which are geared towards normalization and from which we habitually expect nothing - for example, in our routines, the daily first morning glimpse into the mirror, the established routes which we follow each day, the handling of objects which we use on a daily basis. more »

Sometimes, he feels physically compelled. But if force is necessary in order to be able to begin, his painting is still not—as one would be inclined to believe—self-therapy. To successfully summon the spirit, to breed expression out of a situation, to capture the feeling that is borne from a life experience, and then to carry it over to the work, does not necessarily happen each time. If this is the case, one must abruptly stop before one begins, and in a few days, start fresh, exposing oneself anew—as he would put it.

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The path to painting leads the painter Michael Maier over a threshold. When he passes it, he finds himself in a kind of “witch kitchen”, in which he brews his art concoctions and breaks down the borders of our world of values. In the artistic act, he becomes emotionally and physically one with his work. His works erupts forth out of himself. more »

Intensity can be fascinating. However, levity also holds a certain charm. The artist’s name, ILA — which stands for the sentence in German: einen “Immens Langen Atem haben” (literally, “to be long of breath”, i.e. “to have stamina or willpower”) — expresses the difficulties of an artist’s existence: facing setbacks, keeping up endurance, rolling with the punches. The business of art often seems like hard work, however, the work process and artistic expression of art is more like play. He wishes for his works to appear like they happen effortlessly, minus burdening concepts like “genius” or artistic self-sacrifice. His work, he says, is inspired by the idea of giving something. They should be considered as invitations to stick around, to wake one up but not to win one over. The viewer then must choose his or her own way through the works, unguided by the preconceptions of others.

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After getting a degree in geology, ILA turned his attentions towards art. His preoccupation with natural science can still be found in his work. Exhibition titles such as “All in All” are reminiscent of the systematic paradigm of nature. In his work, “Earth Plugs” — which was honored with First Prize at the International Biennale for Miniatures in Belgrade — he drilled holes into pavement curbs, house facades, and boulders using a diamond drill bit, thereby inoculating the socio-geological ground of these public spaces and found locations as a kind of artistic intervention. more »