From July 23rd until October 30th 2011, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg displays works about artistic self-representation in the exhibition “role models – role playing”. On the occasion, CastYourart produced the short film EVA & ADELE about(on, over) SALZBURG with the artist duo EVA & ADELE. The film will be on display in the exhibition, we have put a sample online for you.

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Role models – role playing

The masquerade and its staging are a challenge for the protagonists. However, since long ago performance has not been limited to the stage and spotlight anymore. It has freed itself from the narrowness of the theatres, playhouses, cinemas, television shows and magazines and has stepped out into real life. In the course this liberation, acting has been transformed into role playing. Its protagonists are we. more »

Jürgenssen explores the scope of female identity constructions and the gender roles within her sociocultural environment of the 1970ies. By means of drawings and photography she develops surreal and subversive counter-concepts and demonstrates that humor and poetry can very well go along with feminist strategies.

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In cooperation with Verbund Collection, the Bank Austria Kunstforum has the first posthumous retrospective of Birgit Jürgenssen on display, with 250 works of art of different media. In drawings, watercolors, Polaroids, photograms, objects, performances and videos, Jürgenssen explores the scope of female identity constructions and the gender roles in her immediate sociocultural environment. more »

It is often said that every portrait is a self-portrait of the painter in a sense and every painter is painting himself – Peter Baldingers portraits show the presence of the absent.

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How to produce a portrait, are there any certain possibilities of concretion or is it the mere flow of speculations? Every human constructs himself with words, by what he says and what he says about himself. The self-narrative of a human is all we have to assemble him as a whole. The individual attains his existence through his self-description, namely when he claims the copyright on his history and image. Within the configuration of identity we have to forge our own self or to try so, for better or for worse. Things happen, contingencies, by means of which we have to create our ego and we are constantly at it, with more or less success.
Even though Peter Baldinger’s imagery is full of disappearing identities in the process of drifting off, the intent of communicating with the viewer permeates his work. more »

Irene Andessner resuscitates the Tableau vivant with “Art Protectors” in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. The exhibition ‘The Gold Age. Dutch Group Portraits from the Amsterdams Historic Museum’ can be seen till 21.11.2010 in Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
This podcast was realised with the kind support of UNIQUA ArtCercles.

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Art Protectors is a two-piece tableau vivant Irene Andessner staged in the Kunsthistorisches Museum after the model of Dutch regent’s portraits. Two paintings of Jan de Brays of 1667 are the initial source. They show the administrative council of the leper-, pestilence and insane asylum, the directors and patrons administering and supporting it. In her contemporary reinterpretation of the subject, Andessner replaces the staff of both paintings by patrons of the arts: collectors, gallerists, a museum director, a curator. more »

Fiene Scharp’s references to hair and skin confront us with our own corporeality and challenge us to place such normally mundane materials in a new context, not only in art, but in life as well.

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Beauty. Order. Cleanliness. Purity. Perfection. To all of these coveted qualities, hair is a threat, a flaw, a disturbance. more »

Irene Andessner’s self-dramatizations are revivals of historical personalities that utilize memory as a source of reactivation.

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Irene Andessner began her career with painting. She first studied with Emilio Vedova, one of the most important Italian Informal painters, at the Academia di Belli Arti in Venice, and then with Max Weiler and Arnulf Rainer—also a representative of the Informal—at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Andessner encountered paintings by the Italian Renaissance painter, Sofonisba Anguissola, for the first time at an exhibition at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The self-portraits fascinated her, more »

It was animals that were created first, only thereafter, human beings. Seniority, the privilege of age, was compensated by the privilege of designation, the late arrival meant: “the ability to observe and appropriately designate what came before“. (Peter Sloterdijk) But human beings are the notorious late arrivers, one should not be deceived by the biblical version. Because humans only come into their own through language, the individual must always harbor the eerily daunting gap of pre-linguistic existence.

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When Deborah Sengl uses metalinguistic capability in order to create a new word, she refers to the fact that the found language masks as much as it reveals. By creating the word “ertarnen“ (“to deceive through displacement”), which is used in most of the titles of her artworks, she incapsulates the central themes of her work: humans, animals, camouflage, and breeding. more »

In our age, identity has become something of an obsession. Andy Warhol predicted the perennial pursuit of one’s “15 minutes of fame”, and celebrity status represents the ultimate destination of success. The art world has been far from exempt from this trend: the persona of a well-known artist is often as carefully crafted as his artwork. The cult of personality can reap considerable profits, as the latest record-breaking artworks of Klimt, Picasso, and Pollock will attest to. The elusive nature of creative genius garners a level of worship that makes today’s museum as sacred a place as yesterday’s cathedral.

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One of the most exciting tendencies of art is its ability to constantly upend itself. Styles are meant to be challenged, theories debunked, rules broken. In the end, the role of art is to make us see things differently, and just when we think we have done, shake up our world again.

Just as we read about the latest most expensive painting being sold, or the hottest young art star hitting the scene, a quiet countermovement is taking place. The cult of personality is making way for the quest for anonymity. Art collectives shun what they see as outdated values such as egoism, fame, and recognition. Avoiding limiting designations such as roles or credits, collectives bring the focus back to the work itself, art for art’s sake. more »

She produces films every year. She stands before the camera. She directs—in recent years, together with Chris Haring. It was a blessing that she met Chris Haring, explains Mara Mattuschka. He is generous. He has an open system of working that integrates people and their respective points of view.

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Haring stages his productions in bare spaces, from which Mattuschka makes films which correspond to cinematic rules of setting and dramaturgy. She extends her perspective as a painter into her cinematic approach. Up-close views of the body, from below, from above. Views which distort perspective. With digital retouching, she designs places, architectures, and spatialities. The films resulting from their collaboration are called: “Legal Errorist”, “Part Time Heroes”, and “Running Sushi”. more »