December 01 – 12, 2012
Critical Alliances, HDLU, Zagreb, HR
Opening: November 30, 2012, 7 pm
with
Hugo Canoilas (PT/AT)
Lucy McKenzie & Beca Lipscombe (Atelier) (GB/BE)
Wolfgang Obermair (DE/AT)
Markus Proschek (AT)
Ales Pushkin (BY)
Tamas St. Turba (HU)
Ekaterina Shapiro (RU/AT)
Martin Vesely (AT)
“The active working process of the cortex is a militant act of the organism, all soothing, lulling circumstances are affecting it in a disturbing manner.” Aaron Salkind in his instructions to the hygiene of intellectual work, 1926.
“But if one opens all the ways to go and where to go with whom, how would you find your way?"
Mashina Vremeni in their song “The Barrier”, 1981.
The exhibition “Critical Alliances” seeks to question historical perceptions of the ideal conditions for artistic production and how these relate to the working and living realities of contemporary artists.
What external circumstances do artists consider ideal for self-determined creative activity? What spiritual or psychological incentives are necessary? Which restrictions are perceived as productive potential? Is financial stability an essential ideal? Should artists strive for society’s benevolence? And finally, how does the artist’s inner dialogue manifest in relation to their social environment?
FIXED ACTION PATTERNS
Cloths on hexagons, books
280 x 130 cm
2012
Two books are presented on a dual-perception display: Konrad Lorenz’s He Was Talking to the Cattle, to the Birds and the Fishes and Countess Maria von Maltzan’s The New Cat Book. Both were published shortly after the Second World War, during a time of economic and social instability. The authors each chose to publish a popular science guide on how to care for pets. Countess Maria von Maltzan was a veterinarian and a resistance fighter during the Third Reich. Konrad Lorenz, an ethologist and Nobel Prize winner, remains a controversial figure due to his opportunistic support of Nazi ideologies, particularly those concerning “racial hygiene.” Obermair is interested in historical parallels and in how perceptual settings can reflect the conditions of cultural and scientific production.
Wolfgang Obermair Dresdner Strasse 46/10 1200 Vienna / Austria