The Return of the Old Ghosts

Opening | Tuesday, 4 October 2011, 7 pm
Welcome address and introduction | Eva Blimlinger, Rector of the Academy (Oct. 2011) and Marion von Osten, Professor for Art and Communication
Film | "Soshana" by Cana Bilir-Meier and Julian Paul Stockinger, 8 pm, room M 13

Project leader | Marion von Osten
Coordination | Miriam Kathrein, Nathalie Koger and Claudia Lomoschitz
Artists | Cana Bilir-Meier, Karl Doppler, Tobias Dörler, Rubina Hämmerle, Julia Hay, Heike Jooß, Nathalie Koger, Claudia Lomoschitz, Katharina Luksch, Karoline Maisch, Florian Mayr, Natascha Muhic, Jaime Nagl, Małgorzata Oliwa, Isabella Pessl, Martin Schwarzinger, Soshana, Rainer Spangl, Julian Paul Stockinger

Symposium (conference language is German) | 27 - 29 October 2011 at the Filmarchiv Austria , Studiokino, Obere Augartenstraße 1 e, 1020 Vienna

In autumn 2010, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna reopened its Gallery of Paintings under the title “The Return of the Old Masters” after a long planning and conversion period. Developed as part of a one-year project within the Art and Communication study program at the Institute for Education in the Arts together with the Academy’s Gallery of Paintings and its Graphic Art Collection, the exhibition project “The Return of the Old Ghosts” in the xhibit space relates to this new presentation, exploring the relationship between the academy’s (educational) collections and the history and present-day context of education-in-the-arts programs. What about the knowledge, the views, and the artistic subjects (re)produced by the extant archives? How can young artists, informed by the institution, inscribe themselves into this institutional framework without adopting its nationally oriented configuration? Graphic, photographic and filmic works were developed for this exhibition project conceived by students of the Art and Communication program together with students of and graduates from the Institute for Fine Arts who also created a display and worked out a curatorial concept.

Lectures and film contributions offer an in-depth approach to the questions raised in the xhibit presentation in an accordingly conceived symposium that, spanning two evenings and one morning, provides a wider view. Theorists, activists, scientists, artists, and filmmakers will discuss the issues’ relevance and present-day importance in regard to what artists expect of the university education at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.

With their intervention into the architecture of the exhibition space xhibit, Tobias Dörler, Julia Hay, Claudia Lomoschitz, Florian Mayr, Natascha Muhic, and Rainer Spangl will create an independent spatial sculpture providing a carrier medium for works of art and the project’s curatorial concept.

By removing parts of the layers covering the walls, Claudia Lomoschitz and Jaime Nagl will examine the room’s historical strata.

Drawing on wallpaper and tapestry sample books from the Academy’s Graphic Art Collection, Karl Doppler and Jaime Nagl will focus on subjects of globalization.

Based on Thomas Ender’s Brazil watercolors from the Academy’s Graphic Art Collection, Heike Jooß and Karoline Maisch will question academic (landscape) paintings regarding their contribution to the foundation of national identity and constructions of Eurocentric views.

Katharina Luksch will center on the reception history of a pre-Hispanic Mixtec manuscript, the Vindobonensis Mexicanus I, to be found in the Austrian National Library today.

With her recently undertaken study on “The Return of the Old Ghosts,” Nathalie Koger continues her investigation into institutionalized gender roles one comes upon in the milieu of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Was ausgestellt wird (The Things Exhibited) is another film work by Nathalie Koger, which was shot in the Gustinus Ambrosi Museum in Vienna in 2010. Koger conceived a choreography for its chief protagonist, a hula hoop dancer.

Cana Bilir-Meier, Malgorzata Oliwa, Isabella Pessl, and Julian Paul Stockinger will present a revised biography of the artist Soshana (b. in Vienna in 1927) in cooperation with her. The film Soshana will be screened in the Filmarchiv Austria Studio Cinema in the context of the symposium on October 27, 2011 at 7 p.m.

In his video works, Martin Schwarzinger deals with the artist as a subject. A series of performances features him testing different role models.

Rubina Hämmerle’s film Die Bildermächtigung describes an event invisible to the viewer. A second video work formulates an explicitly subjective view of relevant discourses of the exhibition.

Symposium “The Return of the Old Spirits”
October 27–29, 2011
(conference language is German)

The symposium accompanying the exhibition will take place in the Filmarchiv Austria Studio Cinema from October 27 to October 29, 2011; the institution could be won as a cooperating partner. According to the orientation of the exhibition, three key subjects will be explored: “Processes of Construction,” “Art’s/Politics’ Power of Foundation,” and “Strategies of Archives and Collections.” Positions close to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and corresponding works of art from outside will be confronted with each other in the context of the panels’ lectures, film examples, and project presentations. The discussion will center on works by students as well as current films (such as Paul Poet’s Empire Me) and treasures from the Filmarchiv Austria collections (such as Kurt Steinwendner’s Der Rabe).

Translation: Wolfgang Astelbauer