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The work of the Italian artist Christian Niccoli traces the social mental state of the urban beings of our time. The discourse is over a generation of young adults who have fled their country roots, who have been trained to fight their way through life alone, who are always ready to do their best, but who are secretly oppressed by the question of who will take care of them if something goes wrong.

What is common to them is also what sets them apart. The isolation of those whose existence is based on flexibility and openness, which even though they share with others, does not unite them with others, and in the end only puts them in a position in which they are compared with and played off one another.

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In his photography and video work, Christian Niccoli documents, but he does not make documentaries. He captures inconsistencies and points out structural determinded tensions in our way of life. In his works, communalities are always shown as something individual, something that must be realized by actual individuals, even when they stem from general sociological conditions. The pressure that results from having to individually work through and deal with structural changes such as the neo-capitalist deformation of working conditions produces tension in real life, as well as in his art.

Christian Niccoli, who grew up in the Badia Valley and studied arts in Vienna, Milan, and Florence, lives and works in Berlin. (wh/jn)

It began, as it had to begin, how painting – which captures something new, thereby disturbing the conventional view – nearly always begins. With the changing times. With the meeting of artistic minds. With admiration that follows, along with a lack of understanding and sometimes even denial.

Four years after Georges Braque moved into the French capital from Normandy, he was still painting landscapes in the Impressionistic style. However, his sphere of influence changed. He admires Matisse, Derain, Dufy, and Friesz. Not two years passed by before he became one of the Fauves, one of the young wild ones, as the art critic Louis Vauxcelles patronizingly referred to them on the occasion of an exhibition. Braque commuted between the city, the Montmartre district of Paris, where Picasso had also set up his studio, and the country, the southern Mediterranean coast. There, in Provence, Braque developed his first Fauvist landscapes of pure color. Beginning in 1908, as he was traveling once again to the south to L’Estaque, flat, geometric surfaces became prominent in his paintings. Braque wanted to exhibit these harbingers of Cubism in the Salon d’Automne issue, but they were rejected by the jury.

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Picasso reffered to Braque with the statement, “C’est ma femme”, a reflection of their intensive artistic collaboration which began in the following years. Through mutual inspiration and stimulus, the two artists visually experimented with the fragmentation of subject matter: breaking through the central perspective in favor of the multiplication of foci; concentrating on the reality of the picture rather than reality of the subject, thereby approaching the borders of abstraction; the dissolution of figure and foundation; experimenting with the objective character of the picture – its structure, materiality, and autonomy – introducing foreign materials and fragments into the reality of the picture. The most innovative developments of the still recent century rose from this collaboration. They are the art-historical starting points of further developments in modern art. At the beginning of the Second World War, the mutual support system of artists, as Braque liked to refer to this era, came to an end.

When he returned from the war, Braque took up where he had left off – Cubism. He dedicated himself to the still life. For him, painting was meant to stir things up, which meant avoiding total abstraction. Studio pictures followed, an introverted subject for an equally introverted personality, so Braque returned to the landscape in the last years of his life.

Despite intensive collaboration and Braque’s innovative spirit, Picasso was always the center of attention, the cult of personality accounts for the more extroverted one of the two artists. However, this imbalance is not justified on the artistic level, according to Heike Eipeldauer and Caroline Messensee, the curators of the latest Braque retrospective at the Bank Austria Kunstforum in Vienna. With works on loan from over fifty institutions, the Bank Austria Kunstforum is exhibiting the impressive oeuvre of the French painter for the first time in twenty years in Austria. The work of the painter will be on display until March 1st, 2009 at the Bank Austria Kunstforum in Vienna. (wh)

In 1771, Louis Sébastien Mercier published the novel 2440, which depicts an utopia of a convenient, more ideal, distant future world. Utopias had already existed in the past. However, in Mercier’s utopia, the ideal world is not stumbled upon – for example, through a storm in which one is shipwrecked and washed up onto the shore of the ideal place – but rather a result of a linear history that is played out through human action. “Some were immediately enlightened from the beginning, but the majority of the nation was still careless and childlike. Gradually, the population became more intelligent. We still have much more to accomplish than what we have created so far. We are only halfway there,” according to the caretakers of the future regarding the intermediate conditions of the half-realized utopia. Mercier’s narration of the gradual realization of an ideal world carried out by mankind is a modern vision – with human capital, reason, and faith, as applied to technical, rational progress, as its focal points.

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The modern visions of progress exploded upon its realizations. This we had to recognize in the centuries that followed. The modern project is halfway down a path which leads it further, however not necessarily forward, and the faith in this common path of mankind towards an ideal world, whose vision Mercier calls “The Dream of All Dreams”, eventually fades. Generally speaking, both on the large and small scale, the conception of a more optimal world multiplies, and instead of one movement towards reaching one big goal, juxtaposition and constant flux of means and ways takes its place.

The sculptures and public interventions of the Canadian artist Michel de Broin refer to a certain extent to the intermediate conditions of this halfway point. They capture those transformations that have resulted from the greater history of modern progress, objects which are already slightly outdated but still determine our everyday life: for example, the car, that status symbol of progress, which is usually only used by one person at a time, consuming gas and destroying the environment. However, at the same time, de Broin’s works also refer to the many new formulas for progress: a general slowing-down as a strategy for environmental protection, a balanced economy without a loss of energy, postindustrial visions of sustainability – and the appropriate means towards this conversion which occupy our life.

De Broin’s work translates and highlights such visions of optimization and reveals their inner tendencies and contradictions, sometimes through exaggeration, but often only through showing examples of possible realizations. He breaks down the restrictive definitions of old and new forms of dogmatic idealism without becoming didactic. His style corresponds more to that of one who is playing hooky from such lessons, summoned by his instinct for playful exploration, poking fun at the “progress” and “efficiency” that is holding back the world. (wh/jn)

One of the earliest forms of art were frescoes, which were painted on the walls of caves, often featuring animals such as horses, bears, and lions. In ancient civilizations, frescoes would also be used to depict mythological figures, as well as religious scenarios, which evolved into the pinnacle of their magnificence in the chapels and cathedrals of the Italian Renaissance. Frescoes throughout all of these eras have been inspired by both the familiar and the sacred.

Roy Kortick, the New York-based artist who brings the fresco, as well as other artistic crafts—ceramics, tiles, tapestries—into the new millennium, is inspired by both the cuddly and the profane. In an age of sensory overload and broken-down taboos, Kortick’s deceptively innocent icons are singled out and thrown together in a mishmash of unlikely settings and combinations: a figure of Snoopy reclined on an airplane, bunnies lined up in a fresco motif on a band of ladies’ underwear, native Americans, polar bears, astronauts—even his own pet dogs serve as muses for a makeshift, jumbled, irreverent yet endearing memorial.

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In the end, the frescoes, both of Kortick as well as cave painters and Renaissance masters, are not only notable for their cultural and historical subject matter, they are also exceptional in their forms and techniques: the luminous color brought out by using paint on plaster, the use of resin to bring a glossy sheen to the surface layers. As much as we may conjecture over the meanings behind a fresco’s rich and dynamic imagery, be it ancient or contemporary, in the end, as Kortick points out, it’s about the work that goes into it that really matters. That said, Kortick can’t help closing that statement with a wink and a smile. (jn)

For a long time, contemporary art was strictly a national phenomenon in Turkey and was therefore, to a large extent, ignored internationally. This has changed. In the 1970s and 80s, artists such as Füsun Onur, Ayse Erkmen, Gülsün Karamustafa, Hale Tenger have begun to break through traditional and national orientations and to bring in international influences. As international attention grew stronger in the 90s and the Istanbul Biennales offered venues of presentation and publicity to the more progressive contemporary art of Turkey, awareness of the value of this art and its development was promoted locally. The recent generation of Turkish artists profited from these changes both thematically and professionally.

One of the internationally renowned Turkish artists of the post-2000 generation is Ahmet Ögüt. The past twelve months of the 27-year-old artist, who lives and works in Istanbul and Amsterdam, have been densely packed: his work has been featured in group exhibitions in San Francisco, Berlin, Sydney, Athens, Eindhoven, Seoul, Helsinki, Santa Fe, Nimes, Malmö, Stockholm, Zagreb, London, Banja Luka, and Stuttgart. In addition, he has had solo exhibitions in Basel and Barcelona, three Biennales, as well as numerous online and print contributions.

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Painting, performance, video, sculpture, photography, design, installation—Ahmet Ögüt utilizes a variety of artistic media in order to provide multiple ways of accessing his ideas. In his work, he captures ordinary events: actions, articles, and situations which we encounter on a daily basis and take for granted, thereby no longer falling under our range of perception. The shrewd interventions in which Ahmet Ögüt positions these everyday occurrences bring the unexpected to the surface: the instituting of national power and the fixing of both social differences and indifferences. However, idealism, hope, individual resistance, and powerlessness also become apparent. It reminds us, says Ahmet Ögüt about the effect of his art, of something which we already know, but have forgotten to notice.

In place of the often hermetic approach of theory, the artist uses the anecdotal and playful absurd in order to address his audience. Despite this seemingly lighthearted approach, his work is also critical and exhibits a clear partiality towards the inquisitive, open-minded, experimental side of mankind. He wants, says Ahmet Ögüt, not to instruct, but to remind. In his artistic-political self-conception, he is not so much interested in grand narratives, but rather in modest anecdotes, which one can easily grasp. These do not require that much time in order to be understood, leaving enough time for us to mull them over. (wh/jn)

As you are looking at this podcast, you are looking into a monitor, be it on your laptop, your iPod, your mobile phone, etc. But how much time do you spend actually looking at your monitor, a physical object that one has come to take completely for granted? The point of a mobile world, in fact, is that these objects, through which we stay connected with an information-saturated world, are disposable—toys that we purchase and update on a regular basis, and, at the same rate, discard and forget about just as quickly.

In Noah Fischer’s work, one returns to looking at this neglected object, the monitor, in all its different versions and models over the ages—a technological “era” which only really covers about thirty years of time. The Brooklyn-based artist was first drawn to the monitor by noticing the predominance of them in trash heaps on the streets of New York. What was once a valuable, sought-out item as little as one or two years ago becomes worthless material for the junkyard today, and the cycle accelerates with the emergence of every shiny new model that appears in the store each year, month, week, even—as the regular lines of hungry customers at every new Apple store will attest.

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Noah Fischer brings this frantically mass-produced object back to its simple lo-tech origins: as a relic, a piece of furniture, and most poetically, as a light source—a kind of simple lantern emitting a soft, ethereal light. He re-introduces the most basic structural and aesthetic features of the object in terms of its color, its material, its form. As the newest models of monitors become ever-more streamlined, flatter, smaller, trying to divert attention, in fact, from their condition of being actual physical objects, the obsolete models that once enjoyed such state-of-the-art status become ever more strange and quaint in their outdated bulkiness—a quality made even stranger by the fact that early models of monitors were once a product of designers who even marked each of their works with their signatures.

In an age when video art represents the most cutting-edge medium of young artists, Noah Fischer turns the ubiquitous monitor—both figuratively and literally—on its head, evoking a decidedly modernist, Duchamp-ian gesture in the process. In this case, the signature on the object is his. (jn)

In Amerika, Kafka’s unfinished novel, the sixteen-year-old Karl, after being seduced by a housemaid who then becomes pregnant by him, is sent to America, according to his parents’ wish. In New York, the boy, who has been cast out by his parents, begins his social downslide. In search of belonging, he experiences a world in which one only looks after oneself and which is calculated towards one’s emotional needs. He can only gain social acknowledgment and emotional intimacy at the price of subjugation and self-exploitation. In the last chapter of the never-completed novel, Karl discovers a poster for the Nature Theater of Oklahoma on the streets of New York, which promises work and a home for everyone. Karl signs up and heads west with the theater. According to Max Brod, who published the novel after Kafka’s death, the theater was planned as a place where Karl could participate and thereby find a home and himself.

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“All welcome! Anyone who wants to be an artist, step forward! We are the theater that has a place for everyone, everyone in his place!” It is the obvious generosity that was communicated by the theater poster — in contrast to the calculating world of warped humanity that Karl experienced — that incites the spirit of the Nature Theater of Oklahoma theater group, led by Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska, and which inspired its name. Their theater is a place which invites participation, a place in which the scenes develop right in front of the audience. In Kafka’s Amerika, it is this inviting moment of the theater which increases the awareness of social indifference in everyday human interaction. The repertoire of the New York theater group also addresses everyday occurrences which are taken for granted, in order to direct attention towards them once again. The actors play out these scenarios. From these everyday movements, which are combined anew according to a random tossing of dice or dealing of cards, they create dances and new meanings and convert telephone calls into theater dialogues, as in the piece, “No Dice”.

These approaches of the theater group result in a completely unusual and humorous theater experience. In addition, they expand the meaning of and curiosity about the everyday gestures to which we have grown accustomed, but actually notice very rarely. The Nature Theater of Oklahoma was awarded the Young Directors Award at the Salzburger Festspiele 2008. (wh/jn)

Sculptures and installations of the artist Thomas Baumann possess the quality of being alive. Usually, they are moving. They de-form, they make noises, they move their observers: emotionally, in terms of their beliefs, through the challenge to participate even physically. Movement, says the artist, is a language of our time. We understand it and feel addressed by it on different levels.

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Thomas Baumann’s produces his work from mechanical, technological, and electronic materials. The units of construction have their own aesthetic, and do not remain hidden behind the façades of design. In this way, the sculptures retain the quality of being mechanically engineered works of art which create the effect of being the siblings of those machines that are used in the production lines of industrial manufacturing. In view of their proximity to their rationalized relatives – in terms of production optimization and the avoidance of side effects – Baumann’s works of art, taken out of the manufacturing context, show a surprisingly soulful dimension to its human viewers. They have lyrical sides, humor, they pull one in, they require time, they provoke social critique and thoughtfulness, they delight, they reveal souls which have been exorcised from production-optimized machinery and its operators and have reappeared under the hand of the artist. Technology’s original function, says Thomas Baumann, was to please humans and enhance their existence—a purpose which he attaches to his artistic work. (wh/jn)

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. Whoever enters these worlds signs on for six, twelve, or twenty-four hour periods, and carries out a part of the happening. The power of one’s fantasy, personality, and borders begins a play between oneself and one’s other. For this year’s Steirischer Herbst, the CastYourArt team asked for a visit to the northern complex of the Dorine Chaikin Institute and received one of its rare admissions. (wh/jn)

In the view from above, the earth appears as an unpopulated globe. Zoom in, and a view appears of regions and cities, houses and roadways, playgrounds and parks, cafes and stores, all populated by humans who appear tiny, like ants, occupied, engaged in a multiplicity of movements. The view from above relativizes the action. It strips the individual of particularity. and dissipates into the countless paths of the masses. Such an overview of the viewer is primarily based on this moment of his unobservedness, aloofness, and distance.

What if, however, curiosity strikes? If the view creeps ever closer, for those who are interested in checking out life below in more detail? It involves the unavoidable risk of the voyeur: being caught in the act by a sudden, disturbingly inverted gaze.

The pictures of the painter Stylianos Schicho reveal such instants of immobilization in which time stops, but at the same time, everything overwhelms. The observer loses his bird’s-eye view and is suddenly sucked into the ant’s world. And the observed ones suddenly see themselves reflected. They sense themselves under a stranger’s view, which relativizes their inattention and their attention at the same time — a deer-caught-in-headlights effect.

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Where surveillance uses technology as a channel, the private eye as a discoverer stays anonymous. The view is there, but the viewer is missing. In such a panoptic situation, in which humans gaze meets the lense, a direct confrontation is missing. Instead, movements towards withdrawal begin: the retreat of the observed ones under the observing gaze. The ones who observe become more and more hidden, the observed ones expose themselves - an ever larger hunger for detail.

Stylianos Schicho, sees this development rather pessimistically. One may not nevertheless let go. It should be possible to capture at least one moment of waking up and becoming aware. (wh/jn)