“… and diggings revealed unforeseen finds” – Reports from the Capitalocene
Angela Anderson, Michael Baers, Aikaterini Gegisian, Riccardo Giacconi
The Tiroler Künstler:innenschaft cordially invites you and your friends to the exhibition opening in the Kunstpavillon as part of the Fellowship Program for Art and Theory at the Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen 2018-19.
The exhibition “… and diggings revealed unforeseen finds” – Reports from the Capitalocene shows new and in Innsbruck produced works of the participants of the Fellowship Program for Art and Theory at Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen 2018-19. In their respective projects, Angela Anderson, Michael Baers, Aikaterini Gegisian and Riccardo Giacconi have dealt with forgotten as well as under-examined social and political narratives that could prove relevant for the understanding of contemporary societal dynamics. The contributions of the four artists merge into a polyphonic, virtual narrative of various aspects of the historical development of our present – a poetic report from a time that is gradually freeing itself from the monotheism of cartesian rationality. This monotheism has generated the Janus-faced figure of the Capitalocene, constantly attempting to disguise its nature by trivialising the accompanying social and cultural consequences of the advancing exploitation of the earth as a resource. In the Capitalocene, everything, not only the Earth but also human beings, turn into a resource. The critical examination of the mechanisms of exploitation and concealment is therefore all the more important, but also to dig up spillages and reconsider them. To a certain extent, this exhibition intends to do exactely so: In her multimedia, cinematic installation, Angela Anderson focuses on contemporary, realpolitical, feminist alternatives to the machines of androcentric, extractive capital that destroys nature and culture. The discreet signs of everyday life that accompany the transition of a society to totalitarianism are subject of Michael Baers‘ audio piece, whose narrative thread is set in the spring of 1933, when the National Socialists celebrated successes at Innsbruck’s municipal elections. In her six-channel video work, Aikaterini Gegisian forms a feminist reframing of the representation and mediation of the European community project, as it was presented in US newsreels in the 1940s and 1950s, primarily as a necessarily networked reindustrialization project of post-war Europe. Finally, Riccardo Giacconi addresses in a multimedia installation the “conservative utopia” of a habitat, realized in the 1970s under the name Milano 2 by the investor Silvio Berlusconi as a capitalistically chummed up, proto-populist residential architecture between pseudo-traditionalism and new media.
Event Dates:
The exhibition also includes four events that discuss the presented works and their thematic focus respectively.
On Friday, May 17 at 18.00, Aikaterini Gegisian will show the first three episodes of her six-channel video work Third Person (Plural) (2017-19) in a one-channel screening. This will be followed by a discussion with the Portuguese curator Miguel Amado (Director of Cork Printmakers, Ireland). Location: Kunstpavillon.
On Tuesday, 21 May at 19.00, David Kazanjian (Americanist and comparative literary scholar, University of Pennsylvania) will held a lecture on forms of dispossession. This was originally planned for the Second Buechsenhausen Focus Weeks 2019, in mid-March, at Aikaterini Gegisian‘s invitation. The event takes place in cooperation with the Center for Inter-American Studies at the University of Innsbruck (ZIAS). Location: Kunstpavillon.
On Thursday, 6 June at 19.00, Aikaterini Gegisian will show the last three episodes of her six-channel video work Third Person (Plural) (2017-19) in a one-channel screening. Afterwards, a discussion with film and media scholar Christian Quendler will take place (University of Innsbruck). Location: Kunstpavillon.
On Saturday, 8 June at 20.30 we will show the film Water Makes Us Wet – An Ecosexual Adventure by the documenta participants Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens at the Leokino in Innsbruck. The screening will take place on the initiative of Angela Anderson and in cooperation with kinovi[sie]on, Taxispalais – Kunsthalle Tirol as well as the support of the American Corner Innsbruck (University of Innsbruck). After the screening, Angela Anderson, Nina Tabassomi and the filmmakers (via Skype) will discuss aspects of the film. Location: Leokino, Anichstraße 36, Innsbruck.
Exhibition Details:
Exhibition curated by Andrei Siclodi
Opening on Thursday, 16 May 2019 at 19.00 in the Kunstpavillon of the Tiroler Künstler:innenschaft
Welcoming: Katharina Cibulka, Member of the board
Introduction: Andrei Siclodi, Curator
Duration of the exhibition: 17 May – 3 August, 2019
Opening hours Kunstpavillon: Wed-Fri 11.00-18.00, Sat 11.00-15.00.
Guided tours available on request and on Saturday, June 15, 2019 and July 27, 2019, each at 11.00 and 14.00.
The participating artists:
Angela ANDERSON is an artist and filmmaker working at the intersection of philosophy, ecology, economics, migration, media, and feminist & queer theory. Central to her work is an awareness of the intimate connection between media production, memory and apprehension, and the potential of audio-visual media to open up new lines of flight. She holds a BA in Economics and Latin American Studies from the University of Minnesota, an MA in Film and Media Studies from the New School (NYC) and is pursuing her PhD at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Originally from the northwoods of Wisconsin, USA, she lives and works in Berlin. Since 2013 Anderson has been collaborating with Angela Melitopoulos on the audio-visual research projects Unearthing Disaster, The Refrain (2015) and Crossings (2017), which was shown at documenta 14. In 2016 she produced her short film The Sea Between You and Me (2016) for the show Voice Outside the Echo Chamber curated by Katayoun Arian at Framer Framed (Amsterdam). Other recent exhibitions include Minnesota Street Project (San Francisco – 2017), Holbaek Images (2016) and the Thessaloniki Biennale (2015). Anderson is also the exhibition designer for Forum Expanded at the Berlin International Film Festival and has worked with many other artists and filmmakers on the realization of performative, filmic, and installation projects.
https://www.angelaolgaanderson.net/
Michael BAERS received his PhD from the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in 2014 from its dedicated artistic research department. He has exhibited his artistic work internationally in many prominent art institutions including the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt am Main, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, and the Van Abbemuseum. Since 2010 his work has focused on the cultural outcomes of conflict irresolution in the Middle East and North Africa. Since 2013 he has conducted research on a unique photographic project that emerged from the war between the people of Western Sahara and Morocco, Necessità dei Volti. This has involved lateral research into media theory and visual studies, as well as the history of western North African. Previously Baers has researched cultural politics in Israel and Palestine, in 2014 publishing online with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt a lengthy graphic work about the 2011 Picasso in Palestine project, An Oral History of Picasso in Palestine. He has also published comics and texts on contemporary art and artistic research, cultural politics, and urbanism, contributing to a variety of publication projects and internationally recognized journals, such as A-Prior, the e-flux journal, and Vector – critical research in context.
Aikaterini GEGISIAN is an artist of Greek-Armenian heritage who lives and works in the UK and Greece. Building on her contribution to the Armenian Pavilion, 56th Venice Biennale (2015 Golden Lion for best national participation), she has over the past two years developed a series of new commissions exploring the role of images in the construction of national and gendered identities, amongst others: Jewish Museum, Moscow; National Arts Museum of China, Beijing; Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art; BALTIC, Newcastle; Calvert 22 Foundation, London; Kunsthalle Osnabruck; DEPO, Istanbul; Yermilov Centre, Ukraine. During 2018 she was a Research Fellow at the Library of Congress, Washington DC. Gegisian was Büchsenhausen Fellow in 2018-2019.
gegisian.com
Riccardo GIACCONI studied fine arts at the University IUAV of Venice. His work has been exhibited in various institutions, such as ar/ge kunst (Bolzano), MAC (Belfast), WUK Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna), FRAC Champagne-Ardenne (Reims), tranzitdisplay (Prague), MAXXI (Rome), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin) and at the 6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art. He was artist-in-residence at the Centre international d’art et du paysage (Vassivière, France), lugar a dudas (Cali, Colombia), MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome and La Box (Bourges). He has presented his films at several festivals, including the New York Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Visions du Réel and FID Marseille, where he won the Grand Prix of the international competition in 2015. In 2007 he co-founded the collective Blauer Hase, with which he curates the periodical publication Paesaggio and the Helicotrema festival.
riccardogiacconi.com
Location
Kunstpavillon