2021 exhibition programme

We are re_silly_ent!

In 2021 Kunstraum Niederoesterreich will flaunt its re_silly_ence. In light of all of the challenges in the past year, resilience has become a word that is on everyone’s lips. We want technically “smart,” resilient systems, which can withstand every form of crisis. But isn’t a resilient system merely one that perpetually reproduces itself and is barred from any type of further development? The title re_silly_ence contrasts society’s thirst for resilience and indestructibility, which is accompanied by ever more innovations and technological achievements to maintain this system. This theme runs through our annual programme like a red thread. It surfaces in the group exhibition Life constantly escapes, which explores the idea of resistant life; in the duo exhibition puzzled, which pursues the motif of the predetermined (digital) breaking point; and also in the last exhibition of the year, Wake Words by The Golden Pixel Cooperative, which investigates voice recognition and the question of which voices are (not) heard. Furthermore, the Kunstraum is throwing its 16th birthday party. We celebrate this jubilee with a performance series called “Sweet Sixteen,” consisting of three different productions with performances by Fanni Futterknecht, Claudia Lomoschitz, and Elisabeth Bakambamba Tambwe.

In 2021 Kunstraum Niederoesterreich will award the H13 Lower Austria Prize for Performance for the 15th time. The H13 is the only award for performance art in Austria and is endowed with 5,000 EUR in prize money. The award-winning performance and an accompanying exhibition are presented in the Kunstraum. For more information about the prize, application process, and the jury members, please click here.

Complementing our exhibitions, Kunstraum Niederoesterreich offers a multifaceted art education programme, which is available free of charge. For instance, there are public guided tours, workshops, performances, and a podcast under the title Im Kunstraum. Already for several years now, the ongoing workshop series Guerilla Girls, an education programme especially for girls and young women, has been taking place both on site in the Kunstraum as well as in online formats.
 

Life constantly escapes
Opening: Thursday, February 25, 2021
Duration: Friday, February 26-MArch 4, 2021

Opening the 2021 annual programme, the group exhibition Life constantly escapes investigates the idea of resistant life introduced by theorists of the Black Radical Tradition. It subverts the concept of resilience by posing the question of the radical new. Where alternatives blossom despite all adversities: a party, a garden, a dance. The exhibition brings together artists and poets who are working towards a different kind of sensing and perceiving, of dismantling and reconstructing worlds, and will be accompanied by a poetry book.

Artists: Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Sean Bonney, Octavia E. Butler, Jesse Darling, Lamin Fofana & Nicolas Premier, Luna Ghisetti, James Goodwin, Grant Jonathon / HTMLflowers, Rohini Kapil, Kashif Sharma-Patel & Anuka Ramischwili-Schäfer, Ahya Simone and Bri Williams

Curator: Andrea Popelka

puzzled
Opening: Thursday, June 10, 2021
Duration: Friday, June 11-July 31, 2021

In the exhibition project puzzled the artistic practice of Austrian artist Susanna Flock, who is active, above all, in the medium of video installation, convenes with that of the Montréal-based Swiss artist Xénia Laffely. Laffely works with digital imagery, which she primarily translates into textiles. While the subtext of the works of the two artists attests that a clear dividing line between the analogue and digital world does not exist, the transition zones and predetermined breaking points between the analogue and the digital become tangible in this exhibition.

Artists: Susanna Flock and Xénia Laffely

Curator: Katharina Brandl

Wake Words
Opening: Thursday, September 30, 2021
Duration: Friday, October 1-November 27, 2021

The departure point for the exhibition is the term “voice recognition”: It refers, on the one hand, to technological systems for language assistance and detection, which are silently creeping into many parts of our everyday lives. On the other, the second part of the formulation—recognition—indicates that this phenomenon already assumes a certain concept of a voice that is to be recognised. The exhibition will be accompanied with an audio book that brings together the artists, visitors, the exhibition space, and playback devices in a fictional discussion.

An exhibition by and with The Golden Pixel Cooperative

Conceived by Enar de Dios Rodríguez, Olena Newkryta, and Marlies Pöschl