Jan Böhmermann & btf: Deuscthland#ASNCHLUSS#Östereich

Besides his examination of social and political questions, Jan Böhmermann again and again focuses on the boundaries of satire and its place in the cultural sphere. For the project Deuscthland#ASNCHLUSS#Östereich, he concentrates his cumulative lapses in concentration on the identity of the Republic of Austria and its “motherland” Germany (direct quote Böhmermann)—and questions the political and cultural status quo in the country that we call home with a proper amount of black humor. With the exhibition in Graz, Böhmermann and his comrades-in-arms at the production company btf expand their successful installation DEUSCTHLAND toward the southeast.

As one of the fundamental ideas of democracy, freedom of expression is also increasingly under discussion as a result of populist and antidemocratic movements and hence must be defended. Satire is a genre that is based on provocation and thus frequently sparks controversies: since the attacks on the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten and the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo, political satire with its boundaries and delimitations has become a fixed component of discourses surrounding art and freedom of the press as well as freedom of speech.

Designed as a satire of reality, Deuscthland#ASNCHLUSS#Östereich demands a bit of initiative from visitors and deals with the substance of the individual: the tight passport control at the entrance to Böhmermann’s “Deuscthland” and “Östereich,” the personal choice of a new identity when confronted with one’s own biases regarding class, race, or gender, up to an examination of how the historical guilt is reflected in oneself personally are only a few of the experiences in this nerve-racking show with its fast-paced ride through the virtual Nazi history theme park. For the Austrian version of their debut in the field of visual art, Böhmermann and his team have also created large-format new productions that well and truly put local sarcasm to the test. The path through the exhibition consisting of satirical, humorous thought experiments primarily strives to stimulate responsible thinking and makes reference to the political responsibility of each individual.

Jan Böhmermann is a German satirist, moderator and author, and calls himself a “public juggler.” Böhmermann enjoys touching on sore points and stops at nothing or nobody. In cooperation with his production firm btf he has conceived the late night show Neo Magazin Royale for the German public broadcasters ZDF and ZDFneo since 2015. In the past years, his work has been awarded the German Television Award, the Grimme Prize, and, in 2018, also the ROMY.

With the exhibition Deuscthland#ASNCHLUSS#Östereich, the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien (KM– Graz) puts further emphasis on free speech as one of the highest values of democratic civil society. The medial exhibition experiment is accompanied by a broad program of special events and mediation formats tailored to the project, welcoming guests from the fields of fine art and art history, like André Doehring, Matthias Dusini, Thomas Edlinger, Itzo Easy, Vanessa Joan Müller, Stefanie Sargnagel, Heidemarie Uhl, or within the frame of the festival contemporary art in graz, Florian Waldvogel.