calendario eventi  :: 

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5/7/2007

Two exhibitions

Wiener Secession, Wien

Jens Haaning / Antje Schiffers

ANTJE SCHIFFERS
GROSSES BAUERN-THEATER

Antje Schiffers is interested in the everyday realities of various groups within society, and in the ways their lives are shaped by economic, political, and social conditions – at both local and global levels. She learns different languages and travels a great deal; being on the move is part of her artistic working method, as the exchange of experience is always based on close cooperation with the partners in any given project, organized mostly on a barter basis. In return for her artistic work, Schiffers receives texts, videos, everyday objects, or hospitality. This apparently matter-of-fact exchange also raises questions of the relative value of different activities and touches on issues of utility value versus artistic value, connected with the Romantic notion of the artistic genius. On the one hand, this working method necessitates direct partici­pation of those involved, while, on the other, a distanced analytical view is essential in order to clearly communicate the underlying ideas with regard to the various “operating systems” within society.

At the Secession, Antje Schiffers will present three projects whose content is interlinked in a range of ways both obvious and subtle.

For her latest project GROSSES BAUERN-THEATER (Big farmer’s theater, 2007-), realized with Thomas Sprenger, Antje Schiffers spent two months conducting field study with farmers in Lower Austria and Styria. Her interest here focuses on the reality lived by the farmers, which has undergone major changes as a result of globalization, EU membership and developments within society. While the farmers make video portraits of their everyday working routine, their farms, and their families, as well as commenting on agricultural policy and market develop­ments, Schiffers paints pictures showing views of the farms, which she hands over to the farmers in exchange for their video portraits. In the exhibition, the results of this modernday barter are formally translated into a stagelike presentation.

For one year, Antje Schiffers lived in a mountain village in Oaxaca, Mexico. As the “flower artist”, as she was called by the villagers, she created a register of the local flora in the style of expeditionary botanists of earlier times. The information contained in the register is based in part on the artist’s own observations, while also giving insights into knowledge handed down within the local population, some of which is linked with imaginative stories. During her stay, the artist also set up a photographic laboratory, hired out cameras, and organized workshops showing how photographs are elaborated. In DA WO ICH WAR (Where I was, 1998), the documents and works from this one-year period are given an added narrative dimension in the artistic presentation.

For the project HAUPTSACHE MAN HAT ARBEIT (Having work is the main thing, 2003/04), Antje Schiffers applied to work as a factory artist at the Hanover-based company of ContiTech, a subsidiary of the tire manufacturer Continental AG, as if this job actually existed. In her invented profession, she executed murals based on the wishes of the factory workforce. They included drawings of ContiTech products, instruments used in the company’s laboratories, and associative motifs providing an opportunity for brief moments of relief from everyday routine or reflecting the international origins of the staff.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication of a catalogue (German/English) with a text by Sønke Gau.

ANTJE SCHIFFERS, born 1967 in Heiligendorf, lives and works in Berlin.

SOLO SHOWS (selection): 2007 Unter Ingenieuren, Siemens Berlin / Siemens Arts Program; 2005 Antje Schiffers / Thomas Ganzen­müller, Kunstverein Hannover, Hanover; Globetrotting Through New York, Goethe-Institut New York; Unsere Frau in Minsk, Kunst­fenster des BDI, Berlin; Grau, mein Freund, ist alle Theorie, grün ist nur das Business, Kunstraum München, Munich; 2004 Unsere Frau in Minsk, Galerie für zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig; 2003 Wie ich Geschäfte mache, Cuxhavener Kunstverein, Cuxhaven; 2002 Bin in der Steppe, Kunstverein Wolfsburg; 2001 Wie ich einen ausreichenden Totaleindruck gewann, Projektraum Voltmerstraße, Hanover (with Julia Schmid).

GROUP SHOWS (selection): 2006 Sexy Mythos, Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst Berlin und Forum Stadtpark Graz; Wildes Kapital, Kunsthaus Dresden; Dr’hoim isch dr’hoim, Kunstverein Ludwigs­burg; Bin Beschäftigt, GAK, Bremen; 2005 Crisscross, Museum for Contemporary Art, Zagreb; Trade, The Dock, Kerrick-on-Shannon, Ireland; Schweizer Krankheit + die Sehnsucht nach der Ferne, Kunsthaus Dresden; 2003 Identität schreiben, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig; Buongiorno Casanova, Duchzov, Czechia; Ökonomie der Kunst, Motorenhalle, Dresden; 2002 re-orientation, ACC-Galerie, Weimar; 2001 Le repubblicche dell´Arte: Germania, Centro Arte Contemporanea, Palazzo delle Papesse, Siena.

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JENS HAANING
AN AVERAGE AUSTRIAN YEAR INCOME

Borders to be marked out or crossed, differences, inclusions and exclusions – these are a central theme in the work of Jens Haaning. For borders – territorial, national, linguistic, social, economic, cultural, legal – regulate the coexistence of different people and interests. The Danish artist came to prominence with works of institutional critique during the 1990s. His projects inquire into the political in art, sounding out the interface between social reality and the art institutional context in ways both astonishing and cryptic. Haaning deals primarily with the question of how society constitutes itself and how power is expressed and communicated within it. Who is represented in what form? Who has a voice? He directs his attention towards those not granted the opportunity to inscribe themselves into the dominant system, to help shape it or reflect on it. In his work, Jens Haaning focuses in particular on processes of integration among immigrants and on highlighting cultural complexity. He always operates with exemplary everyday situations.

For an exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Middelburg (NL), he transplanted an entire garment factory into the venue for the duration of the show, complete with infrastructure and workforce. The basic motif here was not just an approach based on institutional critique, but also a model comparison between economic and artistic work. The value of the work in the textile factory performed by immigrant workers was easier to measure, seemingly more real, because it could be expressed in numbers as profit and in terms of production output. The added value of artistic work or activity, on the other hand, is evaluated not in economic terms but on a discursive level via issues of agreement and visibility.

Haaning’s works are often based on a comparison between two similar but incongruent systems; this comparison and contextual shifting reveals “weak points” in the system to which little attention has previously been devoted. In his TRAVEL AGENCY project, for example, he used the difference in price resulting from different rates of taxation for services and artworks to allow him to sell valid plane tickets cheaper as artworks. In his SUPER DISCOUNT project, goods sold in the exhibition at the Fri-Art Center, Fribourg (CH) were marked down by 35 percent. This was made possible by the fact that different rates of taxation in the neighboring countries of France and Switzerland allowed the goods to be purchased across the border at significantly lower prices. Haaning’s projects, then, are always also precise observation of constantly changing conditions.

In his project AUSLÄNDER FREI (meaning both “no foreigners” and “foreigners free of charge”) Jens Haaning explored the ambiguity of linguistic turns of phrase, installing an “Ausländer frei” notice at the entrance to a public openair swimming pool. In this setting, the piece had entirely different connotations than in an exhibition situation, as the sign could not automatically be read as the work of a conceptual artist. “Ausländer frei” may have been interpreted by some visitors as an experiment by political activists, but it is more probable that it was simply accepted as a bureaucratic directive, only causing slight irritation on account of latent disagreement, but not enough to seriously spoil anyone’s day at the pool. Haaning’s works unsettle viewers by confronting them with their own prejudices. These prejudices are integrated into the work, and the viewers are called on to take responsibility.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication of a catalogue (German/English).

JENS HAANING, born 1965 in Hoersholm, lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark.

SOLO SHOWS (selection): 2007 Jens Haaning, Institut d'art contemporain, Villeurbanne; 2005 DANMARK, Galerie Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen; Knud, Erik, Brian, Nina..., Rote Zelle, Munich; 2004 Light Bulb Exchange, Goodwater Gallery, Simon's Restaurant (Niagara Falls), Toronto; 2003 Deutschland, Kunstverein und Stiftung Springerhornhof, Neukirchen; Antonio, Aurangzeap, Espai 13, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Turning inside out and outside in, David Pestorius, Brisbane; Changing cultural power relations, Johann König, Berlin; 2002 Bangkok lightbulb exchange, Galerie Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen; 2000 Gallery Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin.

GROUP SHOWS (selection): 2006 This is America, Centraal Museum, Utrecht; The Show Will Be Open When The Show Will Be Closed, Store Gallery and various locations, London; La Monnaie Vivante, CAC Brétigny, Paris; 2005 Use this kind of Sky, Keith Talent Gallery, London; Shrinking Cities, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig; About Beauty, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Populism, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius/ National Museum of Art Architecture and Design, Oslo/ Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam/ Frankfurter Kunstverein; 2004 Berlin North, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Ethnic Marketing, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva; Social Capital, Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program exhibition, New York; 2003 Ten years anniversary exhibition, Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen; 2002 Touch: Relational Art from the 1990s to Now, San Francisco Art Institute; I promise it’s political, Museum Ludwig, Cologne; 2001 The better you look the more you see, Gallery Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin.

Image: Jens Haaning

Wiener Secession
Friedrichstrasse 12 - Wien

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