Fellowship Program for Art and Theory 2015/16

In 2015–16 the Fellowship Program for Art and Theory will be focusing on work proposals that raise questions – in a broader sense – about the constitution and effect of the imaginary in critical art practices:

– the pre-national, now forgotten social structures in the areas on the current eastern border of Europe, and their possible relevance for the present day (Andrea Bellu);
– egalitarian concepts in the field of interior design since Modernism (Fokus Grupa);
– the poetic mix of money, art and audio-visual media as exemplified by Greek history in the recent and more distant past (Benjamin Tiven);
– forms of relations between artistic practice and social crisis, with respect to the question of art’s self-abolition (Marina Vishmidt & Anthony Iles).

The fellows were selected from among 250 applicants to work on their individual proposals by a jury consisting of Christoph Hinterhuber (artist, member of the consulting committee at Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen), Katharina Morawek (curator and artist, director of the Shedhalle in Zurich) and Andrei Siclodi (curator, director of Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen).

In the context of the Start Up Lectures 2015/16 on Fri 16th October 2015, as well as in the exhibition Economies of the Imaginary, which will be opened at the same time as the Start Up Lectures, the Fellows will present their work and their plans for the coming months.

As every year, the fellows’ artistic and theoretical research as well as their development and production processes will be accompanied by a varied program of public events, which are suggested by the fellows and realized in close cooperation with them. As early as October 20, the British philosopher and member of the editorial collective of Radical Philosophy, Stewart Martin, will speak about the “artistic strike” (Stewart Martin: The Artistic Strike), and on the following day (October 21) he will hold a workshop on “artistic strike and self-abolition” together with Marina Vishmidt and Anthony Iles (Stewart Martin: From Art Strike to Self-Abolition). On November 7, in the context of the Innsbruck Premierentage, a conversation with artist Benjamin Tiven will take place in the exhibition Economies of the Imaginary. Further events involving the fellows are being prepared and will be realized as from January 2016.

With the hosting of Opening of the Research Center “Migration and Globalization” at the University of Innsbruck (Fri 30th October), and the start of a year of cooperation with the Tyrolean Museum of Folk Art, in the context of the project “The Uncomfortable Science” by artist Gareth Kennedy (Artist Talk, November 11) we are underlining our institution’s continuing interest in interdisciplinary alliances for the development of new approaches toward an understanding of crucial questions of our time.

Details on the content and dates of these can be found here on our website.