Protections
This is Not an Exhibition
Co-production between Gutshaus Kranz and steirischer herbst 2006
Curators: Adam Budak, Christine Peters
September 23-October 22, 2006
Opening: Sat, September 23, 11am
Tue – Sun 10am 6pm,
Thu 10am 8pm
Gutshaus Kranz
Lendkai 1, A8020 Graz
T 43-316/8017-9200, F -9212
info [at] kunsthausgraz.at
Gutshaus Kranz is proud to present Protections. This is Not an Exhibition a unique insight into traumas and pleasures of life in a state of emergency.
A strive for safety, a constant need of security and a basic demand for care and comfort are in focus of this project which resists to be yet another exhibition. Here, no fixed points but rather a dynamic structure which bridges visual arts, performance, theatre and architecture constitutes a platform to renegotiate elemental aspects of the contemporary beyond-modern life.
From a subversive architectural gesture of Elmgreen & Dragset (prefabricated houses as a design platform for other artists projects), through laboratory cinema of Moser & Schwinger (a specific location set for still new episodes of good soldier Schwejk) and a vertical stage of Markus Schinwalds Stage Matrix II (impressive site for a non-stop spectacle of everyday choreography) to the MUSU, Apolonija Sustersics Museum-Bus (a mobile architecture on the route between Ljubljana and Graz as a fictive Slovenian Museum of Contemporary Art) and invisible and gentle performative act of Roman Ondak (The Stray Man, performed everyday in front of the Kunsthaus Graz) and Kris Martin with his endless landscape staged on the Gutshaus Kranz inner skin such is a maze of events and situations in the shell of a temporary Gutshaus Kranz carousel of identity
As a project-in-progress, Protections does not protect the viewer by providing him/her with the final product of conventional exhibition making. It allows to follow the development of a concept spread in time and space and executed by the artists in a close encounter with the audience. Its composition – as a storyboard – challenges the usual perceptive habits and it invites to explore the museum space in a participatory way. As such, Protections. This is Not an Exhibition generates a situation which turns the museum into both a meeting place and a site of discovery.
As an ongoing anti-spectacle, Protections does protect the viewer and his/her desire to reflect upon the museum and its (social and cultural) function in the most independent and autonomous way. The performative character of artistic proposals as well as the organic process of collected events guarantee an experience of duration and involvement. Simultaneously, it offers and seeks for temporary shelter whilst creating a non-stable construction site: here the attentiveness is put at stake and the fragility of spectatorship is exposed. Thus the site becomes a playground for staging the relations of public and private nature and producing the knowledge on the practice of everyday life.
As such Protections is a polyphonic edifice where a variety of artistic activities is being inhabited: from architectural interventions, through performances, theatrical forms and performative installations, down to visual contributions that include film and video as well as conceptual and discursive studies. The complex and provocative architecture of the Gutshaus Kranz as well as the social and cultural milieu of the city constitute the matrix for all artistic approaches gathered within this project thus turning into a site-specific event.
Participating artists:
Cezary Bodzianowski, the Centre of Attention, Katrina Daschner, Elmgreen & Dragset, Tim Etchells, Vlatka Horvat, Christian Jankowski, Marysia Lewandowska & Neil Cummings, Katarina Löfström, Daria Martin, Kris Martin, Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Warren Neidich, Roman Ondak, Elisabeth Penker, Philippe Rahm, Markus Schinwald, Dejan Spasovik, Apolonija Sustersic, Mark Wallinger, Markus Weisbeck, Herwig Weiser
A comprehensive Reader in English and German has been published on the occasion of Protections (with contributions from Marius Babias, Zygmunt Bauman, Beatrice von Bismarck, Adam Budak, Jordan Crandall, Claire Doherty, Jean Fisher, Elisabeth Grosz, Nikolaus Hirsch, Veronica Kaup-Hasler, Peter Pakesch, Christine Peters, Irit Rogoff, Stefan Römer, Renata Salecl and Michael Terman).
Protections. This Is Not an Exhibition is accompanied by a very intense programme of events, Gutshaus Unplugged , grouped in four sections: CURATING AS PERFORMANCE or yet another Protections vernissage; GUIDED (PROTECTION ARTIST) TOURS AS PERFORMANCE or a subjective view of an insider; BOOK AS PERFORMANCE or staging a source material; PERFORMATIVE LECTURE or discursive qui pro quo.
Tuesday, September 26, 6pm Curating As Performance
Florian Zeyfang, artist and curator/Berlin: break in / break out and Proprio Aperto
Wednesday, September 27, 3pm and 6pm Guided (Artist) Tour As Performance
Philippe Rahm, architect/Paris
focus: architecture and ambiance
Thursday, September 28, 6pm Book As Performance
Maria Lind, IASPIS/Stockholm in conversation with Søren Grammel, Graz: Curating with Light Luggage, REVOLVER 2005
Saturday, September 30, 5-7pm Special Event At The Generosity Broadcasting House
Marysia Lewandowska & Neil Cummings, artists,/London: Open Content Film Culture
Tuesday, October 3, 7pm Curating As Performance
Sören Grammel, Grazer Kunstverein & Luca Frei, artist/Sweden:
Installation and Presentation of SPARKS
Wednesday, October 4, 3pm and 6pm Guided (Artist) Tour As Performance
Elisabeth Penker, artist/Vienna
focus: sound and language
Thursday, October 5, 6pm Book As Performance
Claire Doherty, University of the West of England/Bristol: Contemporary Art – from Studio to Situations, Black Dog Publishing, 2005
with a screening of Guy Debord’s films and Jeremy Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave
Friday, October 6 Saturday, October 7 Walk-In-Progress
With participation of Claire Doherty, Apolonija Sustersic, Bojana Kunst, Christine Peters and Adam Budak and featuring students of the Schauspielinstitut, Kunstuniversität Graz
Saturday, October 7, 6-8pm Special Event At The Generosity Broadcasting House
Eileen Simpson & Ben White, artists/London: Open Music Archive
Tuesday, October 10, 6pm Curating As Performance
Barbara Steiner, Gallery for Contemporary Art/Leipzig: Spaces of Negotiations with AS IF Architekten/Wien, Berlin
Wednesday, October 11, 3pm and 6pm Guided (Artist) Tour As Performance
Markus Schinwald, artist/Vienna
focus: performance and theatre
Thursday, October 12, 7pm Performative Lecture
Jordan Crandall, media artist and theorist/Los Angeles: Ready for Action!
Friday, October 13, 3pm Performative Lecture
Beatrice von Bismarck, Academy of Visual Arts/Leipzig: Making Exhibitions – Processing Relations
Saturday, October 14, 2-10pm Special Event At The Generosity Broadcasting House
MaMa, Club/Zagreb: Skill Sharing
Tuesday, October 17, 6pm Curating As Performance
Nikolaus Hirsch (co-curator), architect/Frankfurt & Anton Vidokle, artist and curator/New York, Berlin: United Nations Plaza
Wednesday, October 18, 3pm and 6pm Guided (Artist) Tour As Performance
Warren Neidich, artist/New York, Berlin
focus: Phenomen(a)logic Urbanism. An Ontotopologic Journey.
Wednesday October 18 Saturday, October 21, daily 10am-6pm Book As Performance
Seminar and Workshop
Nina Möntmann, curator and writer/Hamburg & Jan Verwoert, art critic/Berlin: Art and Institutions. Current Conflicts and Collaborations, Black Dog Publishing, 2006
Friday, October 20, 5pm Discussion Subtle Environmental Influences on Mood, Sleep an Alertness
Michael Terman, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University/New York in a discussion with Anna Wirz-Justice, Centre for Chronobiology, Psychiatric University Clinics/Basel, Michael Lehofer, Med Uni/Graz and Colin Fournier, architect/ Bartlett School of Architecture, London
Workshop
with Michael Terman and Ann Wirz-Justice and students from Architectural Association, London, ECAL, Lausanne and Technical University, Graz.
3-4.30pm,
