Open call for artists and program 2021

I think the real winner in this transaction
will have been women, on both sides. Let this
remain a conjecture for the future anterior,
to be opened up, again and again.
–Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Archeology of the future or a prospective past?
Future II, or, as this tense is also called: future perfect is a paradoxical grammatical construction. Those who use this tense to make a statement about the world create facts that do not exist yet. They describe the completion of an action in the future from a past perspective. This “will have done” downright runs past itself. However, future perfect is always highly uncertain. The linear progression of current conditions is one of the driving forces behind economic and technological developments. At the same time, there is a lack of visions for a better tomorrow, overshadowed by the desire to return to a better yesterday, which in fact never really existed. With “Future Perfect,” Kunstraum Lakeside draws upon “Future I,” a program conceived exactly 10 years ago. The curators at the time stated that “grand concepts of the future command little political or media prominence, while engagement with utopias and radical social blueprints do however constitute an important theme for contemporary art and theory.” Little has changed a decade later. In light of the tangible implications of global warming and the erosion of familiar (geo)political orders, the situation has become even more critical: The future itself—as a horizon for actions and decisions—seems to have gone lost.

Solo exhibitions
The annual program 2021 will be centered around artistic explorations into what will perhaps have been. It features solo exhibitions by Nika Kupyrova (b. 1985 in Ukraine, lives and works in Vienna and Prague), Anetta Mona Chişa and Lucia Tkáčová (collaborating since 2000, live and work in Prague and Vyhne), and Katrin Hornek (b. 1983 in Austria, lives and works in Vienna). In her exhibition Nika Kupyrova delves into alternative realities and parallel timelines. The screen, the ubiquitous interface of our time, serves as a portal to ghost worlds, astral journeys, and psychedelia beyond our imagination. Anetta Mona Chişa and Lucia Tkáčová substantiate the inextricable entanglement of what was with what will come in captivating scenarios. The materials used, the processes applied, and the realized forms literally render time tangible. Katrin Hornek’s work is embedded in the manifold entanglements that govern life in the Anthropocene. The inextricable ties between culture and nature, human and non-human actors, between long-term processes and momentary events become potentially concrete.

Open call for “Statements”
In addition to the planned exhibitions, Kunstraum Lakeside invites artists, cultural practitioners, and researchers to participate in the 2021 program by submitting their own “Statement”. These performative formats are one-day events whose presented content relates to the annual topic. It is a platform for experiments with modes of representation in the visual arts in the context of an institution at the interface between art, economy, and technology. The intention is to open Kunstraum Lakeside to participation by local, Austrian, and international artists. A total of four “Statements” will be presented in 2021. All material for the open call as well as the application requirements can be downloaded on the website of Kunstraum Lakeside.

Curators
From 2021 to 2023 the program of Kunstraum Lakeside will be curated by Franz Thalmair and Gudrun Ratzinger. Franz Thalmair works as an independent author and publisher in Vienna and is active as a curator at mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien and as a lecturer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Gudrun Ratzinger is an art historian and freelance curator in Vienna. She works as a curatorial project manager for exhibitions at the Technisches Museum Wien and regularly publishes texts in art and culture magazines.