… of bread, wine, cars, security and peace

Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna
Austria

Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz
Treitlstraße 2
1040 Vienna
Austria

With Marwa Arsanios, Zach Blas, Sonia Boyce, Banu Cennetoğlu, Alejandro Cesarco, Saddie Choua, Phil Collins, Alice Creischer, Adji Dieye, Ines Doujak, Melanie Ebenhoch, Tim Etchells, Kevin Jerome Everson, Forensic Architecture, Monika Grabuschnigg, Vlatka Horvat, Anne Marie Jehle, Gülsün Karamustafa, Jessika Khazrik, Victoria Lomasko, Hana Miletić, Marina Naprushkina, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Sylvia Palacios Whitman, Dan Perjovschi, Pirate Care, HC Playner, Oliver Ressler, School of Contradiction, Selma Selman, Andreas Siekmann, Daniel Spoerri, Hito Steyerl, Mladen Stilinović, Marlene Streeruwitz, Milica Tomić, …

Curated by What, How & for Whom / WHW (Ivet Ćurlin, Nataša Ilić and Sabina Sabolović)
Curatorial Assistants: Laura Amann, Aziza Harmel

The title of the exhibition quotes Bilal Khbeiz, a Lebanese author who mused over some of the things that made the difference between the dreams of people in the Global South and the West (Bilal Khbeiz, Globalization and the Manufacture of Transient Events, Beirut: Ashkal Alwan, 2003). For Khbeiz, the very list—bread, wine, cars, security and peace—defined an idea of “the good life” that was unattainable for much of the world. Almost two decades later, it seems that these basics begin to escape more and more people living in places where they were once taken for granted: climate change puts the continuation of life on earth under question; ecological destruction gathers pace; faith in the benevolence of capitalism was broken by the 2008 crash, and its horizon of slow global improvement and trickle-down benefits is steadily evaporating. Today, one might conclude that each element in the title has turned sour and the idea of a “good life” is a fantasy persisting as “cruel attachment” to a world that is no more (Laurent Berlant, Cruel Optimism, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2011).

Nevertheless, this exhibition is not a counsel of despair or a dark critique of all that is wrong with the world. Instead, the artists and artworks on show seek to rethink “the good life,” both as a collective and individual experience. The exhibition posits artistic subjectivity as a place where one can imagine abandoning the fatal dialectic of modern capitalism—and think beyond it. There are already many moral, ecological, and scientific arguments for organizing our economies more fairly and they are becoming increasingly realizable. Degrowth, as one example, is not only a principle that stands for an ecologically sustainable world economy governed by human needs. It also looks for tangible ways to celebrate the richness of the planet and all of its life forms.

The exhibition had an early start: In cooperation with Burgtheater a series of events introduced some of the issues at stake in the show. A residency program for artists, in collaboration with studio das weisse haus, invites some of the artists to stay in Vienna during the exhibition and to engage with the educational department of Kunsthalle Wien to discuss, mediate, and elaborate on their work. The exhibition includes an educational space, which will host a series of artist talks and workshops, guided tours in different languages as well as special programs for kids and families. …of bread, wine, cars, security and peace takes place in all venues and inter-spaces of Kunsthalle Wien—opening the house metaphorically and literally, pushing the threshold of the exhibition towards public space.

… of bread, wine, cars, security and peace opens on March 8, International Women’s Day, to emphasize its feminist perspective. Social and ecological reproduction, and a serious reckoning with the ways in which the work of serving others has been shaped by gender and race are at the heart of its vision of the future. It celebrates sustaining and improving human life, as well as the lives of other species who share our world. It proposes a daily life that is less arduous and more pleasurable, with an abundance of communal luxury and collective leisure, where the “good life” is ecologically supportive and oriented toward the flourishing of all.

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For further information please contact: presse [​at​] kunsthallewien.at