![]() (Instruction for Action) ~ As the basic concept of an "art in the public sphere"
project, the term is remarkable in itself, raising questions
beyond usual performance art programs and calling for some more
personal considerations. Read the account of facts and put yourself in the position of one of the groups involved. Think about whether you would have been able to influence what was going on, and if so, how. The text, an excerpt from a police report of the German occupation force in Poland in the Second World War describes in dry bureaucratic German the deportation and murdering of Jews by German police. Difficulties that the police guards had with the prisoners, but also their brutality, the unimaginable misery of the victims and their hopeless situation are documented in very sober terms (untranslatable into any other language, I think) by the victimizers themselves. |
floorinstallation -Computergenerated Prints ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Starting from the contemporary media experienc as an inextricabl interlacing of text and image, the project attempts a comparison and reflexive exploration of optical and textual persuasive structures, thereby acknowledging the essentially creative and meaning-assigning aspect of text within cultural production. The classical distinction between textual-cognitive and visual-artistic function is for the most part discarded here. The underlying assumption could be that perception processing highly depends on the presence of a particular (not necessarily conscious) canon of knowledge and ethics. On the other hand, 'abstract patterns' regulating mental preselection from the profusion of impulses act as a kind of shielding conductor for the perception process. Thus this floor installation of computer-generated prints could be described as a walk through discourses. From the diversity of meanings streaming in the flow of time, excerpts from about 100 sources and authors were used, which interweave into a dynamic fabric of meaning construction and them representation and, in their contextual relations, create interpretation zones beyond immediate contents. Texts from important Indian authors, like for example, Shahid Amin, Upendra Baxi, Siddharth Varadarajan, and many others concentrate reflexively on special issues of the country in which the exhibition is shown. Viewers walking through the artwork will come across various different textual fields of tension and will be confronted with, partly, unpleasant and controversial statements.Historiography as a means of political justification, of arrogation and agitation is on aspect in this context, which clearly raises the question of the responsibility of the intelligentsia and their institutions. A more subtle skepticism emerges in this works with regard
to constructive structures in historiography and art history
in general. Against this background, all attempts to explain the ever-changing flow of actions and causalities come down to mere rationalizations. The grandmasters of propaganda who inflicted terror on the 20th century mark, as examples, the starting point of what follows, forming, paradoxically, also the terminal point of the debate on the idea of progress in, or the human capability to learn from, history. The central passages of the text material from which the title of the floor installation derives ("PROPAGANDA SERIES ") indexically focus on the discours on power, the potential for violence, and the manipulative capacity of texts. Here the claim for truth is an empty gesture; what is characteristic is the will for power. Th call of fundamentalist terrorists for the random murdering of Americans and their allies, the cynical-technical report about the use of gas vans that is, of the mass-murderous machinery of mobil gas chambers once used by the SS in the Balkan (during world war II ) are shocking because of their outrageous cruelty. More sophisticated,but no less informed by the wish for power are those texts that deliberately thwart factual accounts of historical constellations. They are an ingenious blend of provabl fact and unprovable proposition, drawing a curtain over, mostly criminal, historical events so as to efface facts and leave matters undecided. Kafka's Gregor Samsa as a death figure (A.Zistakis), or as embodying the degradation of a once-dear member of the family to that point of disgust when elimination seems to be the only choice left, is a providential find around which media mechanisms and foe-image constructions used to reassert one's own distinctive identity are represented in many facets. In the profile of the texts, some exemplary personalities gain contour. The critic as a prominent outsider (N.Chomsky), or the tragic-heroic pacifist and philosopher Miladin Zivotic stand for the double function of reflection and action. Brilliance of a shadier kind characterizes the journalist's career (D.Rohd) that is fuelled out of the reportage of the horror (Srebrenica). The provocation of conspicuous luxury in a view of Manhattan (S.Rushdie), the outdated concept of the nation state (Negri /Hardt), or 'blind' followership of a fatal leader figure (R.Domanovic) provide additional levels of the textual zones. Thus the pieces can be viewed on several different levels; they activate and, at the same time, represent different cognitive processes, creating an interactive relationship of viewing/reading/imagining/remembering/starting over again ,a creative loop of interpretation. As a "margin zone of the boundless", a loung showing materials which only partly coincide with the contents of th artwork provides a passageway and a space for recreation. ![]() ![]() ![]() |
~ Born in Austria 1979 First large-scale designs of objects, nature studies 1983 Füger Prize 1986 Diploma in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts,Vienna
(Bruno Gironcoli) 1987 "Jeune Peinture ", Grand Palais, Paris 1988 "On Paper ", Galerie Lang,Vienna 1989 Galerie Ariadne, Vienna (one-man show) Academy
of Fine Arts 1990 Pawilon Wystawowy Biura Wystaw Artystycznych Art Centre, Krakow /Poland National Gallery, Bratislava /Slovakia Kunstverein, Erfurth /Germany Dum Umeni Art Centre, Brno /Czech Republic Galerie Altnöder,Salzburg /Austria Fészek Galeria, Budapest /Hungary 1991 Niederösterreiches Landesmuseun, Vienna (one-man show) Contemporary Art, from the collection of the City of Vienna, city hall, Vienna Organic and Structural Study Project, Vienna 1992 "Surface Radicale ", Grand Palais, Paris "Individual Positions -Young Austrian Artists ", Convention Ctr., Art L.A., Los Angeles /USA (curated by Lorand Hegyi) Multiple(s) Edition, L.A./Vienna 1993 Sighart House, Palm Springs,USA Academy of Applied
Art, Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna Galerie Piltzer, Paris Konfrontationen,
Museum Moderner Kunst/Foundation Ludwig/ Museum of the 20th Century,
Vienna Galerie an der Brücke, Spitalskirche, Lienz 1994 Fet a Europa, Art International Dels 90,centre cultural D`Alcoi /Spain Colorstudies, Pascual Lucas espai, Arte Contemporaneo, Valencia /Spain (one-man show) 1996 Henninger House, Seefeld/Munich /Germany "Attitudes ", Galeries-Jonge Kunst, Knokke, Belgium Art-/Media-intervention /Text-Artwork-Multiple(s) Edition (L.A./Vienna), Real Art/Cimal, Valencia /Spain Aspect-Color, Galerie Insitu,Aalst, Belgium A Pascual Lucas, espai Lucas, Valencia, Spain 1997 Hedendaagse Kunst uit Oostenrijk,Cultureel Centrum De Werf, Aalst, Belgium Henninger House, Seefeld /Munich /Germany Posiciones del Arte Austriaco Actual, Sala Parpallo, Valencia /Spain 1998 ATTRAPPEN, In Situ gallery, Aalst, Belgium (one-man show) Montrouge -Vienne, Art contemporain, Montrouge-Paris PRIX DE PEINTURE, Montrouge -Paris Des Eisbergs Spitze /Museum auf Abruf, Kunsthalle Wien /Vienna Henninger House, Seefeld /Munich /Germany 1999 LINKS, SCHILDERKUNST IN EXTREMIS, Art-Centre Sittard, Provinciehuis Maastricht, Netherlands Henninger House, Seefeld /Munich /Germany 2000 PRE-PRINTS, Royal Nepal Academy-Bhanubhakta Hall,
Kathmandu, Nepal (one-man show) 2001 PRE-PRINTS,Kunsthalle.tmp Steyr,Austria (one-man
show) 2002 Textfields /Battlefields Discourses -Yugoslavia Muzej Istorije Jugoslavije /Historical Museum,Belgrade, (one-man show) 2003 Attack, Kunst und Krieg im Zeitalter der Medien, (Art and War in the Age of Media), Kunsthalle Wien,Vienna, Austria 2004 HOME WITH NO WALLS /World Social Forum 2004 /Mumbai/India © 2004 / HERWIG STEINER SCHÖNBRUNNERSTR.95/3/23 A-1050 WIEN / AUSTRIA E-mail: Steiner_Herwig@gmx.at Tel+Fax:43 1 5458135 |