05–26/04/2017
WAF in ATHENS
"moi non-moi" or "carrying owls to athens"
Opening, Wednesday 5 April 2017, 19:00H
Ausstellungsort:
WIENER ART FOUNDATION Athens, 77B Kallirrois Avenue, 11745 Athens, Greece
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Öffnungszeiten:
Open daily from 16.00–20:00H
or on appointment: Marievi Mastoraki (+30 695 1688111)
FINISSAGE: Wednesday 26 April 2017, 16:00–22:00h
WIENER ART FOUNDATION in ATHENS
"moi non-moi" or "carrying owls to athens"
curated by Amer Abbas and Stefan Bidner
DURATION: 6 April to 26 April 2017
OPENING:
Wednesday, 5 April 2017, 19:00h
with
Performance "Striptease" by Anastasios Logothetis
Concert "rhythmus #2" of Johann Neumeister
Re-enactment of Franz West, Rosa Farbstudie, 2008
DJane stefanie binder (analog)
DJ KvG (digital)
AFTERPARTY:
Cantina Social
Leokoriou 6-8, Psirri
Athens
with
Bjœrnout Syndrome
CONCERT:
Sunday, 9 April 2017, 20:00h
with
Albert Mayr and Panos Papadopoulos
FINISSAGE: Wednesday, 26 April 2017 until 22:00h
Athens Edition
“moi non-moi”
„I hope that my painting has the impact of giving someone, as it did me, the feeling of his own totality, of his own separateness, of his own individuality. “ (Barnett Newman)
„The simplicity of the subject lies beyond the struggle that tears it apart and that, within man, set the ‚I‘ [moi] against the 'non-I' [non-moi]. These struggles do not break up the unity of the ‚I', which – when purified of all that is not authentically human in it – is given to peace with itself, completes itself, closes on and rests upon itself.“ (Emmanuel Levinas, On Escape)
What can be taught in art? Emotions, languages, religions. But they are subject to experiences and traditions. Is there any autonomy in art at all? Surveillance, terror and economic dependence determines our lives - often unconsciously. In order to free ourselves from these influences, to overcome them and to recognize them, we need ‘the other’ according to the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Only through him can we mediate our authentic self at all. It is only through him that one can expose his experiences and limits. “moi non-moi” is a series of exhibitions that will take place over the year 2017. The series has already started in Vienna exhibiting the artist Christoph Meier, at the beginning of the year and recently with Walter Vopava. The inspirations of Levinas’ thoughts are also connected with the Project that takes place in Athens during April. In the Athens exhibition "moi non-moi” Amer Abbas and Stefan Bidner have invited more than 40 artists from Vienna and Greece. The selected artists deal with the complex relationship between the I and the other in their works. Abbas and Bidner show artists, which are breaking down the walls of traditional institutions and academic discourses. Artists, who have seen the battle, that making art is creating the self and walking to the other. Their vision is to feel art and live art, away from boring institutions; searching for a moment of an extraordinary event, of an unusual spirit in classical artistic media like sculptures, paintings, films etc. They do not create without taking into account their own pleasure. They act totally independently from current styles and moods, contributing in very free ways to reality, new living existentialism in showing its absurdity and alienation. They are marking the wound left-behind by the act of the domination happening in our lives. Their works are confronting the spectators with breaking lines of their own continuities. The artworks are a new discourse: how we put our self and the others in relation, where it happens, from where it comes... artistically spoken on how we create truth. The drawings, sculptures, installations, videos and performances are all different, but they all give the spectators a specific roll to redefine themselves. It is the state (role?) of art to show the distance to the self and the other.
The selected artists also have in common a procreative exchange between Vienna and Athens. Artists from Vienna were in touch with artists from Athens and vice versa. In the Athens show and hopefully also in the Vienna Edition we try to expand this highly productive exchange. „moi non-moi“ in Athens is an occurrence and should support the artists, after they have breathed the air of their actuality in both cities, to replace thoughts, orientations, beliefs and break through the usual and standard. Before this interplay, Greek artists were mostly present in Berlin, Paris or London. Now Vienna develops a strong exchange with the Greek art scene.
(Amer Abbas for “moi non-moi” Athens Edition, 2017)
aísthēsis manifestus
Paper doesn't blush!
The shameless loansharks, the politically incapable, the bullheaded fundamentalists, those manoeuvring geopolitically, the smooth-operating tricksters are all abusing paper’s patience and they seize the impotent material with their fraudulent intentions.
The free radicals and the radically unfree take position and what lies in between crushes in a mist of lies. Dead meat is hanging like alive from Cerberus’ claws. Blood is becoming the ink with which history is written. Like long time ago, books are drowning in a sea of fire. What is noteworthy circulates wandering in spirit in the unwritten books of only a few. Catharsis is waiting in line of the unconscious consciousness.
The patient paper turns yellow and the last hope of recorded truth lies on art, to strip the dark matter from its power. Let the spirit of Goya be with us!
And now - more than ever - let us carry owls to ATH€NS!
Je t´aime ... moi non plus
(stefan bidner, WAF, vienna/athens, 2017)
ARTIST LIST:
Irini Athanassakis, Stefanie Binder, Cäcilia Brown, Thomas Feuerstein, Andreas Fogarasi, Marcus Geiger, Sophie Gogl, Franz Graf, Martin Grandits, Begi Guggenheim, Ilse Haider, Stelios Karamonolis, Victor Lizana, Anastasios Logothetis, Michael Lukas, Marko Lulic, Constantin Luser, Albert Mayr, Christoph Meier, Johann Neumeister, Katherina Olschbaur, Panos Papadopoulos, Natasha Papadopoulou, Parastu, Rade Petrasevic, Hans Werner Poschauko, Christian Rosa, Corinne L. Rusch, Alex Ruthner, Nino Sakandelidze, Hans Schabus, Toni Schmale, Johannes Schweiger, Björn Segschneider, Nino Stelzl, Sofia Stevi, Stefania Strouza, Philipp Timischl, Jannis Varelas, Kerstin von Gabain, Astrid Wagner, Franz West, Erwin Wurm
With the support of: Austrian Federal Chancellery and City of Vienna
WIENER ART FOUNDATION Athens
77B Kallirrois Avenue
11745 Athens
Greece
