In a landscape of art, culture and politics that is in a continuous state of flux, in 2003 the Secession is still obligated to its traditional mandate of making contemporary fine art accessible to an interested public and arousing a sensitivity for the complexity of contemporary art production. The projects that refer to specific local contextual and architectonic givens in relation to international trends are especially significant. Although most of the works of the solo exhibitions are created specifically for this occasion, the two group exhibitions, Fate of Alien Modes and Junge Szene 03, also place existing works in a context established by the curators. The special characteristic of the Secession that all programmatic decisions are made by the artists elected to the board (currently Sabine Bitter, Manfred Erjautz, Matthias Herrmann, Michael Hofstätter, Johanna Kandl, Sandrine von Klot, Willi Kopf, Hans Kupelwieser, Marko Lulic, Dorit Margreiter, Anna Meyer, Constanze Ruhm, Martin Walde, Heimo Zobernig) is not only a sign of artistic competence and the courage to experiment, but also a mandate to offer a broad view of the developments in contemporary art.



HANS SCHABUS
Feb 27 – Apr 27, 2003


Hans Schabus, Astronaut, 2003

Hans Schabus' works have an unmediated relationship to spatial thinking and experience; the sculptures and interventions often refer directly to the mental and physical surroundings of the artist, especially to his studio and the material to be processed there. The place where art is created is examined in terms of its allegorical potential with respect to life. The works can be read as a meditation on the creative act, its aspirations, but also its difference from everyday activities. The film works that deal with traveling, speed and non-goal-oriented movement indicate the importance of an interdisciplinary reflection for art, particularly in terms of language and its ability to establish (non-)sense.
Hans Schabus lives and works in Vienna.


MANFRED WILLMANN
Feb 27 – Apr 27, 2003


Manfred Willmann, Das Land, 1981-93

In his photo works, Manfred Willmann assumes the role of mediator between the familiar and the foreign, between near and far, between the known and the unknown. His interest in rural landscapes, and their inhabitants, that are poor in the material sense corresponds to his unconventional picture compositions, the raw flash, the intensely piercing coloration of the photographs. In his works, which are always arranged as a series, Willmann imbues what he depicts - whether it involves human beings, nature, or a combination of both - with an unromantic aura far removed from pathos and nostalgia. In these chronicles of a vanishing time, the role played by chance, by photographic luck, by staging, remains hidden in the semi-darkness of the picture frame.
Manfred Willmann lives and works in Graz.


FATE OF ALIEN MODES
May 10– June 22, 2003


Nomeda und Gediminas Urbonas, Ruta Remake, 2002

The curatorial approach shifts the subject of an exhibition "on" cinema as a model for contemporary art practices towards an investigation of the cinema apparatus as an economy unfolding within different scripts and into a spatiality of various modes of production. Films and artistic productions are contrasted with contributions and commissions from the realms of set design, script writing, film theory, anthropology, architecture and psychoanalysis. Fate of Alien Modes is opposed to the visual camouflage of exhibition spaces, which override difference in the guise of "black boxes" and "mini cinemas". The institutional containers (of cinema and art spaces) are rendered as tenuous constructions and diegetic worlds based on "spatial narratives". Thus, an information architecture between theatrical stage, filmset and exhibition space is shaped by establishing a relation between spatial as well as narrative aspects.
Curated by Constanze Ruhm.


ECHOPARK + WOLGANG CAPELLARI
http://echopark.free.fr/
June 25 – 26, 2003



In recent years Wolfgang Capellari has appeared internationally with his music performances, in which he conjoins accordion and vocals with motifs from fine art. With the motto "slide projects as percussion", Capellari projects slide series in rhythm with the music, so that his performances are also reminiscent of early silent films with their live piano accompaniment. For the Secession, Wolfgang Capellari develops a joint project with the French music formation EchoparK. EchoparK, Nadia Lichtig and Bertrand Georges, perform electronic music with elements of pop rock from the 80s.
Over a period of two days, Wolfgang Capellari and EchoparK will stage concerts and performances in the main hall of the Secession, presenting different sound installations and interventions.


MARY HEILMANN
Jul 4 – Sept 7, 2003


Mary Heilmann, Side Show Bob, 2001

In abstract painting, the most mythically charged field of fine art, Mary Heilmann's work assumes a special position. Her exploration of color, combination and space within the canvas, but also the heavyweight history of the medium, is accompanied by her (autobiographical) interest in pop and its airy lightness, the love of unorthodox coloration and the confusion of visual order. Although Heilmann repeatedly cites her predecessors' focus on reduction and the concentration on what appears essential, her own painterly gesture is strongly characterized by her unfettered way of regulating color and surface and her lightheartedness, probing her own framework, in dealing with rhythm and composition.
Mary Heilmann lives and works in New York.


MEL ZIEGLER
Jul 4 – Sept 7, 2003


Mel Ziegler, Come and Go, 1998

Mel Ziegler is one of the most consistent representatives of an expanded in-situ concept from the 90s. In his projects, which are located not only in exhibition spaces but also in urban spaces, he investigates how the circumstances of public life and social space are reflected in the architecture and "design" of cities. His work focuses on the question of hidden historical and socio-political manifestations of representation. In order to uncover and manipulate these, Mel Ziegler uses the most diverse material - historical street lanterns and cabinet furniture, but also his own body temperature - to create complex reference systems, in which individual and collective history meet.
Mel Ziegler lives and works in Austin/Texas.


NORBERT BRUNNER-LIENZ
Jul 4 – Sept 7, 2003


Norbert Brunner-Lienz, Im Spiegel der Psyche, 2002

A characteristic element of Norbert Brunner-Lienz' works is his exploration of language. Semantic meanings are deconstructed and transformed in his audio installations, experimental radio plays and radio actions, but also in his drawings and literary artistic texts, so that language is articulated as a pattern and spatial-temporal form. This results in complex analytical and, at the same time, aesthetically poetical verbal images, which not only reveal new fields of relationships between icon, index and symbol, but also cover text as a material and medium that can be played and shaped beyond the field of linguistics. Norbert Brunner-Lienz' works thus carry on the formulation of the surreal qualities of words and phrases that ground identity, along with their special characteristics.
Norbert Brunner-Lienz lives and works in Innsbruck and Vienna.


CONTEXT, FORM, TROY
Sep 18 – Nov 16, 2003


Secession, Main Room

Junge Szene is the title of an exhibition series initiated at the Secession in 1983. Since 1998 this series has distinguished itself as an international platform for projects and works by younger artists. The exhibition title arouses expectations: tracking new trends, presenting future stars, providing a representative overview. Attention is focused primarily, though, on works by a new generation, their way of thinking and their ideas of form. What is pivotal is the fact that younger artists negotiate issues of representation, historical connections and narrative structures through artistic praxis, but without dispensing with the claims of an autonomous work concept.
Curated by Daniel Baumann, Basel


BRIAN JUNGEN
Sep 18 – Nov 16, 2003


Brian Jungen, Shapeshifter, 2000

His installations and drawings are among the central artistic contributions to a reformulation of ethnological and cultural evolutionary views, as well as of the significance of an aesthetic language as a tool of cultural criticism. Jungen achieved international renown with the sculptures "Prototype for New Understanding", in which he fabricated ceremonial masks from disassembled Nike Air Jordans. Jungen belongs to the culture of the Northwest Coast Indians (First Nations), and what he pursues in his work is not the reanimation of a marginalized (image) language and symbolism. Rather, his works show culture as a fusion of cultures, thus questioning the belief not only in an authenticity, but also a primacy in reference to both an "Indian" and a dominant western tradition.
Brian Jungen lives and works in Vancouver.


ANDREA GEYER
Sep 18 – Nov 16, 2003


andrea geyer, A Place To Be, 2003

Especially during the 90s, the media of video and photography have proven themselves anew as methodological tools for critical explorations of social phenomena. andrea geyer operates in this conceptual tradition. In her installations, she often stages social interactions or navigations through (urban) spaces as sites of a production of culture and sources of our experiences. The works, into which fictional elements and theoretical references, interviews and broadly based research flow, pursue an interest in conveying identities not as statically fixed images, but rather as flexible configurations, and in intervening in diverse verbal and visual mechanisms of control and regulation.
andrea geyer lives and works in New York and Freiburg.


MONICA BONVICINI / SAM DURANT
Nov 28, 2003 – Feb 1, 2004


Monica Bonvicini / Sam Durant, Untitled, 2003

This exhibition project marks the first collaboration between Monica Bonvicini and Sam Durant. In her work, Bonvicini deals with the parameters (and clichés) of architecture and their life-determining significance that are usually connoted masculine; in installations and drawings, she reacts to the machismo that still surrounds architecture with rigor and pornographic humor. Sam Durant's work also revolves around architecture and art, particularly in relation to (historical) pop culture; ideas about monuments as a remembrance and reference medium for understanding history and architecture have a special position in this context. Both artists have confidence in art's ability to change consciousness and reality, ideally even beyond the boundaries of the White Cube.
Monica Bonvicini lives and works in Berlin.
Sam Durant lives and works in Los Angeles.


JOKE ROBAARD
Nov 28, 2003 – Feb 1, 2004


Joke Robaard, Trailer, 2001 (Detail)

Starting from her interest in employing her own artistic praxis to establish dialogues and networks, the artist develops small-format folders, which she enlarges to show in museums or distributes via magazines. The folder projects stage complex panoramas at the intersection of art, architecture, fashion and design. In this way, different discourses are juxtaposed, in contrast to the tradition of crossover, as elements of equal value. In the form she uses, Robaard also places photographs, persons and texts (including the colophon) as independent levels in the sequence of images, simultaneously linking them through the surface, thus visualizing the interplay between individuals, institutions, media and sponsors as a permanent process. In addition, art historical references to picture genres such as the group portrait are repeatedly merged into the work.
Joke Robaard lives and works in Amsterdam.



PERMANENT EXHIBITION
Gustav Klimt: THE BEETHOVEN FRIEZE
 
 
 
For further information and photographic material please contact:
 
Pia Leydolt
Secession, Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession
Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna
Tel: +43-1-5875307-10, Fax: +43-1-5875307-34
E-mail: presse@secession.at