Liu Xiaodong
The Process of Painting
6 June–2 September 2012
media.art.collecting
Perspectives of a Collection
16 June–28 April 2012
Kunsthaus Graz
Universalmuseum Joanneum
Lendkai 1, 8020 Graz, Austria
Hours: Tue–Sun, 10–5pm
T +43 316/8017 9200
kunsthausgraz [at] museum-joanneum.at
Liu Xiaodong
The Process of Painting
Opening: Tuesday, 5 June 2012, 7pm
Space01
Curator: Günther Holler-Schuster
The painter Liu Xiaodong is one of the most well-known representatives internationally of a generation of Chinese artists who grew up in a new society marked by rapid and frequent shifts in perspective. He uses the language of form of Socialist Realism and conventional documentary media to lend a voice to daily life against the background of radical change. Earthquakes, changes in landscape, and human-made ecological disasters, as well as social formation based on economic transformation: all this has been captured by Liu Xiaodong. He confronts the developments by visiting the places concerned and attempting to capture the significance of events in visual form.
For the exhibition Liu Xiaodong. The Process of Painting in the Kunsthaus Graz, the artist has chosen Eisenerz in Upper Styria, Austria, as the location for his latest project where he lived and worked for a month with a team of assistants and camera operators. The situation with the centuries-old industrial and cultural landscape bears a striking resemblance with conditions in China. Eisenerz, exposed to an enormous process of change, is suddenly transformed into a global model. The degeneration caused by structural shifts and the accompanying social transformation have created clearly visible problems; attempts to overcome them are varied. As a painter Liu does not tackle events and historical developments in a combative way, rather as a chronicler. He attempts to express the transition from one form of society to the other through pictures.
media.art.collecting
Perspectives of a Collection
Opening: Friday, 15 June 2012, 7pm
Space02
Curators: Katrin Bucher Trantow, Günther Holler-Schuster, Katia Huemer
With works by: Vito Acconci, Thomas Baumann/Josef Dabernig/Martin Kaltner, Jordan Crandall, Sonja Gangl, Caroline Heider, Richard Kriesche, Mike Kelley/Paul McCarthy, Muntean/Rosenblum, Nam June Paik, Manfred Wolff-Plottegg/Hartmut Skerbisch, Pipilotti Rist, Susanne Schuda, Peter Weibel a. o.
How does media art define itself in the course of an almost 40-year-old collection? What changes, what comes to form a whole, what was overlooked, and where does it go from here?
Audiovisual Messages—the 1973 edition of the Trigon Biennal—placed a major emphasis on media art, putting local artists in direct relation to international developments. This exhibition marked the beginning of a dynamic that made Graz appear a special place for media art. The exhibition media.art.collecting deals with collecting activities at the Neue Galerie Graz in the area of media art, the essence of which becomes evident in the spectrum of exhibitions held over the past 40 years. Building on the 2009 exhibition Rewind/Fast Forward at the Neue Galerie Graz and its first-ever survey of the institution’s video art collection, the current exhibition media.art.collecting. Perspectives of a Collection will offer a broader view of other parts of the collection such as installation and photography, but also of what is missing and desired. Changing every eight weeks, the exhibition will manifest as an evolving structure of relationships and historical as well as current desiderata. At a time when media pervades all aspects of everyday life, the exhibition will keep its focus trained on the question of the changing notion of media art as it relates to the collection’s own structure—both in retrospect and with regard to its own outlook for the future. In doing so, it aims to provide a comprehensive look of what has previously been neglected, while at the same time pointing to expansion opportunities as they become evident with regards to the historical situation of new media in Graz.
Guided tours
German: Tue–Fri, 3:30pm; Sat, Sun, and public holidays, 11am and 3:30pm
English: Sat, 2pm
