Ins Dunkle schwimmen: Abysses of the Creative Imperative

October 16, 2024–February 1, 2025 / opening: October 15, 2024, 6pm.

Location: The University Gallery of the Angewandte, Heiligenkreuzerhof, 1010 Vienna. Entrance: Schönlaterngasse 5 / Grashofgasse 3, 1010 Vienna, Stairway 8, first floor. Opening hours: Wednesday–Saturday, 2–6pm. Closed on public holidays.

The exhibition Ins Dunkle schwimmen presents contemporary art that explores how the individual is shaped as a “creative subject.” It examines both the continuation and deconstruction of modernist hopes for art as a supposedly authentic expression of the inner self and for creativity as a tool for improving living conditions. Today, creativity plays a fundamental role in processes of subjectivation and navigates the tension between personal desires and social expectations, between longing and imperative. Cultural sociologist Andreas Reckwitz also speaks of an “ideal of creativity” in this context. Atmospherically, the exhibition title Ins Dunkle schwimmen [Swimming into the Dark] refers less to an ominous unknown but rather to the deep waters, dangerous currents, and at times dark abysses of self-doubt and perceived inadequacy that are closely associated with creativity.

“Be your own brand”: Today, self-realization and self-presentation are fundamental components of the entrepreneurial self. Doing the things one is “passionate” about, that you “burn” for, is part of the ideal of a successful life that hyped on social media. Where, instead of communal care and support, often merely individualized “self-care” is suggested, while ecological, social, and political crises exacerbate the situation, relations of (self-)exploitation take on an increasingly existential significance.

As “self-designers” par excellence, artists are prototypical for the creative existence that has become an overall societal requirement profile. The resulting contradictory expectations and abysses of creativity in the context of art production therefore often become subjects of artistic practice themselves. The works shown in the exhibition question societal mechanisms of aesthetic capitalism and the associated myth of the new. Strategies of repetition, removal, non-action, refusal, revaluation and elimination play a central role. They sound out the conditions of self-formation in artistic production and in refining one’s life, or seek exit strategies from the instrumentalization of the pathos of creativity and freedom.

Curated by Cosima Rainer and Robert Müller / Curatorial Assistance: Laura Egger-Karlegger and Manon Fougère.

With works by: Uli Aigner, Monika Baer, Linda Bilda, The Critical Ass (Anke Dyes, Niklas Lichti) & Michele Di Menna, Josef Dabernig, Hanne Darboven, Verena Dengler, Jana Euler, Harun Farocki, Jessyca R. Hauser, Alexander Hempel, Richard Hoeck & John Miller, Helena Huneke, Martin Kippenberger, Josef Kramhöller, Michael Krebber, Tonio Kröner, Maria Lassnig, Ghislaine Leung, Lee Lozano, Friederike Mayröcker, Luzie Meyer, Sigmar Polke, Ulla Rossek, Jack Smith, Josef Strau, Jean-Marie Straub, Martine Syms, Franz West, Tanja Widmann, Amelie von Wulffen, Min Yoon

Further information on the exhibition here.