CMRK openings in Graz, Austria
CMRK is a network of four independent
institutions for contemporary art based in
Graz: Camera Austria, Künstlerhaus KM–,
Halle für Kunst & Medien, , and
Grazer Kunstverein.
Joachim Koester: The Ghost Shop
Camera Austria
March 15–May 25
www.camera-austria.at
Words as Doors – in Language, Art, Film
Künstlerhaus KM–
Halle für Kunst & Medien
March 15–May 18
www.km-k.at
Measures of Saving the World _ Part 5
March 15–May 24
www.rotor.mur.at
Lisa Oppenheim: From Abigail to Jacob (Works 2004–2014)
Grazer Kunstverein
March 15–May 18
www.grazerkunstverein.org
In 2013 the Danish artist Joachim Koester received the Camera Austria Award for Contemporary Photography by the City of Graz. Koester had already participated in a two-part exhibition project at Camera Austria in 2006 and 2009: First the artist defines meaning and Then the work takes place. Each of these two exhibitions explored the relationship between visibility, knowledge, history, and image by taking up conceptual positions in photographic practice.
It is in this field of conceptual practices that the work of Joachim Koester is rooted. In introducing precise pictures and series that are clearly of documentary nature, the artist circles around both (historical) events and a (historical) realm of meaning, often situated at the margins of modernity and modernist logic: a “hidden index of things,” as Koester himself calls it.
Camera Austria is showing the first comprehensive solo exhibition by Joachim Koester in Austria with a focus on his photographic projects since 2009. In parallel to the exhibition, the magazine Camera Austria International will be publishing a contribution by the artist in the anniversary issue no. 125 (March 2014).
Words as Doors – in Language, Art, Film at Künstlerhaus KM– is dedicated to the mutually permeating relationship of the written word with art and film. As incongruent as approximations to the spaces of art and film may seem, many film and art theorists quite consistently continue to separate their discourse. This applies to common aspects as well, both in a positive sense (newly arising interest in techniques of film projection and development) and a negative one (such as an increasing, aestheticizing homogenization due to the HD format).
Words as Doors – in Language, Art, Film takes a major step backwards. The exhibition starts out at a point prior to actual production, where the fundamental concept of film is developed on the level of the written word and the screenplay, with cognizance of the representative function of language.
With Michael Baers, Rosa Barba, Stephanie Barber, Pierre Bismuth, Marcel Broodthaers, Bernadette Corporation, Martin Ebner, Sonja Gangl, Renée Green, Takahiko Iimura, KRIWET, David Lamelas, Owen Land, Sonia Leimer, Jeanne Liotta, Christian Meyer, Maria Meinild, Matthias Meyer, Wolfgang Plöger, John Smith, Javier Téllez, Mario Garcia Torres, John Waters, Jennifer West
“It is an irony of fate that just in our time, which might be called the final stage of Enlightenment and the Industrial Age, humankind cannot think and act wisely anymore despite its knowledge. Modern humans do not know nature anymore. They also do not know themselves.” This is what the Indonesian writer and visual artist Arahmaiani writes in her text “Thoughts of a Dreaming Nomad.” To set something against this missing wisdom is one of the motivations in the fifth and concluding part of the exhibition series at . In the frame of the series we traced, for a period of more than one year total, alternatives to the presently dominant ways of “cultivating” our planet and then presented artistic production in this context.
With Hannah Brackston, Catherine Grau / Zoe Kreye, Polonca Lovšin, Ralo Mayer, RESANITA, Kamen Stoyanov
This coming year, the Grazer Kunstverein continues its exploration into notions of “social abstraction” by presenting work by artists who investigate and translate their physical relationship towards their surroundings.
Over the past decade, artist Lisa Oppenheim (b. 1975, US) has steadily developed a unique body of work exploring the usage of (historical) imagery. Balanced between appropriation and reconstruction, her work relies on substitutions applied to photographic and filmic records through which the historical and the present are transmitted and constituted in a language of today. One could define her work as an archaeology of time and visual culture. By exposing or even re-exposing archival material, Oppenheim bridges the past and the present by introducing new meaning to these historical images, often resulting in film and photographic projects.
From Abigail to Jacob (Works 2004–2014) is Lisa Oppenheim’s first larger institutional show that spans over a decade of production, ranging from earlier prints and slideworks to more recent photograms and films.
The exhibition has been developed in collaboration with Kunstverein in Hamburg and FRAC Champagne-Ardenne and includes the artist’s first monographic publication published by Sternberg Press.
