Exhibition Archive

LITERATURE, PERFORMANCE, PHOTOGRAPHY, ART. The Wiener Gruppe and an international context.

Duration from: 20 March – 16 May 2015

Based on the Wiener Gruppe and its members H. C. Artmann, Friedrich Achleitner, Konrad Bayer, Gerhard Rühm, and Oswald Wiener, presented through one of the most comprehensive photographic documentaries by Franz Hubmann, the exhibition shows additional Austrian artists from this circle and its successors in comparision with international positions. 

Belonging to the most important contemporaries of the group are Marc Adrian, Kurt Kren, Ernst Jandl, Dieter Roth, Dominik Steiger, followed by the actionists Günter Brus, Otto Muehl, Hermann Nitsch, and Rudolf Schwarzkogler. In an international context, the circle further includes artists Robert Cumming, Hamish Fulton, Bruce Nauman, Carolee Schneeman, or William Wegman, who integrate the elements of performance, photography, and literature into their work. As representatives of the next generation, ranging from Hans Weigand, Franz West and Heimo Zobernig up to the contemporary artists Christian Eisenberger, Zenita Komad, and not least the group Gelitin with its “Kakabet.”

 

The members of the Wiener Gruppe wanted a radical break with the traditional view of art and, as Hubert Klocker explained in 1998, they saw art as representing systems of social and political reality and behavior and they tried to intervene in these processes of communication. […] Along with interventions of a language-critical nature, there were ‘non-lingual’ performances that presented taboo areas. The ‘Piano Interactivities’ (Klavierzertrümmerung) was written into art history as an anticipation of Viennese and international Actionism. […] The body in its pure physicality and not as a signifier was presented provocatively by Bayer and Wiener, in reference to body building and also to what we know today as international body art, which was to begin just a few years later. […] There were attempts to present—in equal treatments of—objects, photos, films, and actors. Other attempts went in the direction of mechanized and automated object-theater.

The group’s best-known theater events are the two literary cabarets of 1958 and 1959, performed by Achleitner, Rühm, Wiener, Bayer and several other actors. The literary cabarets brought together all forms of theater into one concentrated form. […] There were chansons and shocking actions, such as the famous Piano Interactivities; dance improvisation, exhibition of objects in a kind of object theater, poetry reading, projections, films, and readings, music on various instruments and classical piano music, sound, and recordings of sound collages interchanged in their performance.

Many ideas remained at the conceptual level back then. As we know, the Wiener Gruppe dissolved at the beginning of the 1960s.
(Quoted from the lecture by Evelyn Deutsch-Schreiner: “Wirklichkeitsinterventionen. Performative Provokationsästhetiken der Wiener Gruppe als Reaktion auf das starre kulturelle Klima der Nachkriegszeit”.)

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Exhibition Archive

ART COLOGNE 2023

November 16 - 19 2023

WOLF VOSTELL FRANZ WEST RUDOLF POLANSZKY

September 13 - October 31 2023 > prolonged until Dez. 24, 2023

TRIBUTE TO GÜNTER BRUS ON HIS 85TH BIRTHDAY

September 21 - October 20 2023

CHRISTIAN EISENBERGER

May 16 - July 28 2023

FRANZ WEST PRIVAT.

March 2 - April 22 2023

MIROSLAV TICHÝ

February 16 - April 22 2023

OTTO MUEHL

October 7 2022 - January 21 2023

WANG YUN | ILLUSION OF TIME

Septbember 6 - October 1, 2022

MARTIN KASTNER | WAS IST DAS

June 30 - September 3, 2022

FRANZ WEST & FRIENDS

February 16 - May 7, 2022

WANG YUN - DER N-DIMENSIONALE RAUM

December 15, 2021 - January 29, 2022

PAUL RENNER | HORNSTRUMPOT

July 6 - September 25, 2021

OTTO MUEHL | THE SINS OF THE FATHERS

November 4, 2020 - February 27, 2021

Watch Out!

September 19 - October 31, 2020

Art in Austria since 1945

June 5 - September 12, 2020

OTTO MUEHL | WORKS ON PAPER

January 9 - February 15, 2020 > prolonged until Feb. 29, 2020

test_unlimited, west / bretterbauer

December 6 - 21, 2019

HOFSTETTER KURT | EIN HOCH dem Planet der Pendler

November 19 - December 1, 2019

JOHANN HAUSER

November 19 - December 21, 2019

MUEHL, NITSCH, POLANSZKY, SCHWARZKOGLER, WEST

September 5 - October 26, 2019

SOMMERAUSSTELLUNG

June 29 - August 31, 2019

OTTO MUEHL | WORKS 1955 - 2013

4.05. - 15.06.2019__PROLONGED UNTIL June 29!

WIR TRETEN ZURÜCK

Jan 18 - Feb 21, 2019

WHEN GAY PEOPLE WERE STILL CURABLE

Jan 11, 2019 at 7p.m.

JOSEPH BEUYS - Wirtschaftswerte

Jan 18, 2018 - Feb 16, 2019 > prolonged until March 9!

MIROSLAV TICHÝ

Nov 9, 2018 - Jan 8, 2019

The Supersymmetrical Music of Hofstetter Kurt

Oct 19 - Nov 3, 2018 | World premiere Thursday, October 18, 2018 at 6 p.m.

Art and Revolution

Aug 29 - Oct 13, 2018

RUDOLF POLANSZKY - RETROSPECTIVE

Opening: • May 24, 2018 • Exhibition duration: May 25 - Aug 4, 2018

REFERENCES - ARTISTS AND IDOLS

Apr 5 – May 19, 2018

Austrian Photography and Painting from Five Decades

Exhibition: February 15 – March 17, 2018

SATURNALIA 2017

Festival, Sunday, December 17, 2017, from 6 p.m. • 19.12.2017–27.01.2018

Hofstetter Kurt: AMBIENT TACTILE ART

FESTIVAL AND PRESENTATION, November 16, 2017, at 7pm

KCC no. 10: BEAUTY

Concert date: Thurs., June 1, 2017, at 7 p.m. • June 2 – September 9, 2017

AUSTRIAN MASTERS

Apéro: Sat, March 16, 2017, 11–3 • Duration: 21.03.–20.05.2017

Markus Mittringer: WHATEVER THE CASE

Opening: 26.01.2017, 7 p.m. • 27.01.–07.03.2017

KCC nr 9: SATURNALIA III

Concert & Performance & party: Sat, December 17, 2016, 7:30 p.m. • Exhibition duration: 18.12.2016–18.01.2017

SEX APPEAL OF THE INORGANIC

Opening: Thu, 10 November • Exhibition duration: 11 November – 10 December 2016

KCC no. 8: Untitled

Concert: Thu, 20 October, 7:30 p.m.

In Focus: Franz West & Rudolf Polanszky

until the end of September 2016

100 paintings – from the collection of the gallery

Exhibition: 5 July – 9 September 2016

KCC no. 7: PARAPHRASE

Exhibition: 20 May – 25 June 2016

Change of Subject

Exhibition: 11 Feb – 7 May 2016

KCC no. 6: Saturnalia II

Exhibition: 18 Dec 2015 – 31 Jan 2016

KCC Nr. 5: Nakedness. Holy Mania.

Concert: Wed. November 11, 2015, at 7:30 p.m.

Cruising — Rita Nowak & Michael Horsky

Exhibition: 6 Nov – 5 Dec 2015

KCC no. 3 “SATURNALIA I”

Saturnalia festival: 17.12.2014 • 19.12.2014-14.02.2015

Juxtapositions - 50 Years in Historical Comparison

21st February – 26th April 2014