Secession announce Unrest of Form. Imagining the Political Subject

Secession presents Unrest of Form. Imagining the Political Subject on May 11–June 16, 2013.

Since new protest movements have been arising worldwide, often unforeseen and with sheer inexhaustible energy, many people in the artistic-cultural field who solidarise with these movements are asking a number of questions: can contemporary art advance the resistance against disastrous economic structures if it has itself a definite and profitable share in them? Or have the true potentials of art—i.e. the difficult, the nonconformist—already been liquidated behind the façades of its spaces still conceived as free? Mustn’t the project of a political aesthetics transcending all types of activism suitable for media exploitation be considered aborted and suppressed, tortured and tortuous, hard to reinstall? Isn’t Adorno’s dictum again apt today, namely that art can no longer intervene, precisely because it is received and responded to; and because even its boldest expressions are no longer safe from the integral economy of culture?

Yet, for us, this situation of aporia, of historicity, of apparent entrapment seems to harbour a moment of utopia that can be triggered today: artistic imaginations of a political subject that refer to forms and formats that go beyond the genre of short-lived artistic agitation and their parading in the space of art.

Wiener Festwochen 2013 will dedicate the exhibition Unrest of Form. Imagining the Political Subject to these forms and formats. For this project, the Vienna Secession, the Academy of Fine Arts and adjacent public areas at the MuseumsQuartier will serve as a stage at the interface between visual and performing arts. The project will examine and negotiate perceptions and blueprints for an idea of a “politics of form.” For the duration of the exhibition, artistic interventions, lectures, seminars, films and performances will enliven the ensemble; these events are conceived as integral components of the exhibition concept. The group show will feature works by artists with backgrounds in the visual arts, theatre, dance, music, performance art and literature; the wide variety of their approaches will lend.

Participating artists:
Thomas Arzt*, Volkan Aslan, Tarek Atoui*, Neïl Beloufa*, Luo Bing, Brad Butler, Banu Cennetoğlu*, Keti Chukhrov, Antonio Cosentino, Tim Crouch, Burak Delier, Elmas Deniz, Carola Dertnig*, J. C. Duenkel, Jimmie Durham*, Barbara Ehnes, Gustav Ernst*, Tim Etchells, Süreyyya Evren, Antonio Fian*, Franzobel*, İnci Furni, Dora García*, Thomas Glavinic*, Dmitri Gutov*, Wang Haian, Wen Hui, Hannah Hurtzig*, Elfriede Jelinek, Anna Jermolaewa, Schorsch Kamerun*, Hassan Khan*, Julius Koller*, Chris Kondek*, KwieKulik*, Mapa Teatro, Zhang Mengqi, Karen Mirza, Rabih Mroué, Jia Nannan, Marina Naprushkina, Henrik Olesen*, Boris Ondreička*, Ontroerend Goed, Yasemin Özcan*, Mustafa Erdem Özler, İz Öztat, Ewald Palmetshofer*, Judith Nika Pfeifer*, Shu Qiao, Nuno Ramos, Milo Rau, Navin Rawanchaikul, Ad Reinhardt*, David Riff*, Kathrin Röggla*, Pedro Romero, Ferdinand Schmatz*, Franz Schuh*, Tino Sehgal*, Akira Takayama, Vladimir Tatlin*, Miguel Ventura, Tris Vonna-Michell*, Jeronimo Voss*, Wu Wenguang, Tanja Widmann*, Dilek Winchester, Li Xinmin, Zou Xueping…

Exhibition parcours by Vienna Secession, Wiener Festwochen, and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In cooperation with MuseumsQuartier Vienna.

Curated by Karl Baratta, Stefanie Carp, Matthias Pees, Hedwig Saxenhuber, and Georg Schöllhammer

Display: Johannes Posch

Venues: Secession, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Xhibit), and MuseumsQuartier Vienna (freiraum quartier 21)
Secession
Friedrichstrasse 12
1010 Vienna
T +43 1 587 53 07 11
F +43 1 587 53 07 34
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www.secession.at