Poetics of Power

Curated by Andreja Hribernik & Nini Palavandishvili

From mid-November 2024 to end of May 2025, Kunsthaus Graz presents Poetics of Power, a group show that spans across diverse mediums, blending existing works with new productions. The exhibition offers visitors a captivating journey through time and history, inviting them to explore, question and reflect upon the complex dynamics of power, violence and resistance.

Poetics of Power unveils the hidden manifestations of power—whether in objects, political structures, symbols, gestures or within the fabric of unquestioned institutions. It presents power not as a static force but as an intricate and ambiguous element deeply embedded in shaping our interpersonal, cultural, national and economic realities, omnipresent and fluid. It also aims to expose the anomalies and fissures in systems where cultural imbalances and inequalities are most apparent. Parallel to this, it acknowledges and explores the poetic element of power, its pervasive influence and alluring nature. Many of the featured works deal with authoritarian histories, distorted narratives or fully eliminated knowledge, the destruction of cultures and the construction of identities, but also solidarity and courage and a belief in humanity.

By examining diverse contexts, the exhibition sheds light on how power reveals itself and solidifies within social, economic and political frameworks. Most clearly, it is manifested in asymmetries that occur when there is the imbalance of power, in economic relations between more powerful states and those lacking economic or even military power, or simply between individuals or social groups. This contradictory nature of power becomes especially intriguing when considering its crystallisation within certain systems, fostering stability but also a built-in mechanism that allow these systems to be questioned and even overthrown. Although power is often presented as absolute and unshakable, its actualisation is inevitably imperfect. This discrepancy between the idea of absoluteness of power and the imperfect actualisation of power is also the controversy and the void from which the opposite forces can grow. For this reason, resistance is also an intrinsic aspect of power and its immanent part. The latter, dispersed and transformative, instigates change and facilitates the reconfiguration of systems.

The exhibition invites viewers to navigate through a spectrum of emotions and ideas—helplessness, resistance, defeat, rationality, dreams and hopes while reflecting on the complex, ever-shifting relationship between violence and resistance.

With works by Yael Bartana, Vajiko Chachkhiani, Jošt Franko, Gabriela Golder, Cristian Inostroza, Grada Kilomba, Daria Koltsova, Goshka Macuga, Daniela Ortiz, Ahmet Öğüt, Erkan Özgen, Hannes Priesch, Monira al Qadiri, Zanny Begg & Oliver Ressler, Anna Zvyagnitseva, Lukas Marxt, Ala Savashevich.