Kunstauktion für das Hilfswerk International zugunsten syrischer Flüchtlinge im Libanon Freitag, 22. November 2019 Dorotheum, Wien www.dorotheum.com Ausstellung The Other is Oneself Franz Josefs Kai 3 5. November – 14. Dezember Bidding information: Ingeborg Fiegl DOROTHEUM Dorotheergasse 17 1010 Wien Tel. +43-1-515 60-449 Mobile +43 (0)664 810 61 32 [email protected] www.dorotheum.com Please use the absentee bid form attached to the catalogue.

Photocredits: Iris Andraschek (p. 55), Simon Veres (p. 7, 15, 23, 29, 39), Khaled Barakeh (p. 25), Elisabetta Benassi (p. 31), Nisrine Boukhari (p. 49), Anna Konrath (p. 19), Vincent Entekhabi (p. 53), Sylvia Eckermann (p. 45), François Doury (p. 11), Anna Jermolaewa (p. 21), Pablo Messil (p. 27), Florian Laczkovics (p. 9) Studio Jonathan Monk (p. 9), Klaus Mosettig (p. 35), Hans Schabus/ Bildrecht GmbH (p. 13), Sergey Zhdanovich (p. 47), Gerold Tagwerker (p. 37), Marko Lipuš (p. 33), Hans Schröder, Copyright Marta Herford (p. 41), Bernhard Cella (p. 51) Iris Andraschek Babi Badalov Khaled Barakeh Elisabetta Benassi Nisrine Boukhari Bernhard Cella Adriana Czernin Ramesch Daha Sébastien de Ganay Raffaella della Olga Sylvia Eckermann Simone Fattal Anna Jermolaewa Mirta Kupferminc Thomas Locher Jonathan Monk Klaus Mosettig Rudolf Polanszky Hans Schabus Slavs and Tatars Gerold Tagwerker Florian Unterberger Martin Walde Lawrence Weiner Nil Yalter Samia Ziadi

Curator: Fiona Liewehr

www.toio.org Lawrence Weiner has been one of the main representatives of concept art since the 1960s. The phrase ‚ON BOARD THE SHIPS AT SEA In 1968 he published his famous manifesto ARE WE‘ sounds as if it is rolling like the waves ‚Declaration of Intent‘, which remains unchanged themselves around the mind of the observer to this day: who is reading it. The lack of punctuation leaves 1. The artist may construct the piece. open a range of interpretations, but each one 2. The piece may be fabricated. invites the reader to identify with the ship itself, 3. The piece need not be built. its occupants and their journey. Associations Each being equal and consistent with the intent of rendition and insecurity – triggered by the of the artist, the decision as to condition rests natural power of the sea or human action, tran- with the receiver upon the occasion of receiv- scendence and fascination, trust and alienation, ership. holidays and luxury trips, city tourism and the Weiner’s practice is characterised by a radical arrival of refugees – alternate against the back- renunciation of implementation in favour of the ground of a shared characteristic – that of being linguistic formulation of his concepts. Intelli- human – unique to each passenger. This is a gent, poetic and often humorous, he generates message that Lawrence Weiner meticulously murals, drawings and works in public spaces in pursues in every element of the work. Drawn which he medially regards every letter and every in pencil, the large, red, crosshatched letters word as a sculptural element. He forms these are distributed, descending, across the sheet. word sculptures in English and at the same time, A small ship, its funnels highlighted in yellow, generally, in the local language of the exhibi- draws our attention to the upper right corner of tion location and, by only using terms that are the picture, while the frame is submersed in the absolutely essential, creates a broad spectrum powerful blue of the ocean. Weiner’s palette is of potential associations that shed light on the rich in signals and, like his language, limited to political, social, and critical issues of our time. the most essential elements. The archival paper, whose impregnation shimmers as the light falls Lawrence Weiner briefly studied literature and upon it, acts as a bearer of stories and reminds philosophy at Hunter College in New York. He us to be reflective, cautious, and critical in has exhibited globally since the 1960s includ- dealing with cultural, political, and social narra- ing, most recently, at the 56th and 55th Venice tives. As the phrase descends remorselessly, Biennales (2015/2013), documenta 13 (2012), the observer is almost drawn into the depths Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna, OSL Contem- beyond the frame, subject to a pulling effect porary, Oslo (2019), Perez Art Museum, Miami that even challenges the sought-after stability and Milwaukee Art Museum (2017). His work of the geometrical form of the quadrat. Associ- is found in countless private and institutional ations with the growing movement of refugees collections including, DIA Foundation, Beacon, manifest themselves in this work by Lawrence Guggenheim Museum, MoMA and Whitney Weiner, whose humorous levity becomes, when Museum of American Art, New York, MOCA, considered at length, deadly earnest. (AK) Los Angeles, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, British Museum, London, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, MMK Frank- furt, Sprengel Museum, Hannover, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Stedelijk, Amsterdam, Guggenheim, Bilbao, Kunstmuseum Winterthur and MUMOK, Vienna.

4 Lawrence Weiner *1942 in The Bronx, New York, lives and works in New York and Amsterdam ON BOARD THE SHIPS AT SEA ARE WE, 2018 Faber Castell pencil, Faber Castell ink on folded archival paper, 50.5 × 65.1 cm, framed Courtesy of the artist

Live auction, lot 1: € 13.600.-

5 Austrian artist Rudolf Polanszky has been settings as the Centre Pompidou, Paris, Rubell developing a diverse oeuvre ranging from Family Collection, Miami (2019), Secession conceptual film, video and photographic work Wien, Leopold Museum, Vienna (2018), Belve- via drawing and painting, to sculptural objects dere 21 (2016/2014), Galerie Andreas Huber and assemblages, since the mid-1970s. From (2015/2013), Kunsthalle Wien (2011), Malmö a starting point in which he seeks to rearrange Konsthall (2008), and the 52nd Venice Biennale and change, as well as reorganise how we think (2007). about, various sorts of conceptual patterns, he incorporates chance into his artistic method In his sculpture TUBE SCULPTURE, Polanszky as a category of input beyond causality and also addresses the potential for recognition determinism. To this end he often uses waste that is generated by inverting how we look at materials such as Plexiglas, metal, reflective foil, negative and positive spaces and internal and synthetic resin, wire and foam, which have been external boundaries. A tattered sheet of Plexi- exposed to the weather or show other signs glas with traces of pink paint, coiled around a of wear, exploiting the fact that these cannot dented metal roller, rests upon a filigree metal easily be shaped into predetermined forms and, framework supported by a thin metal plate hence, defy the creative and constructional will that stands upon a somewhat-crooked table of the artist. He combines a fascination with formed of welded steel rods and a battered scientific explanatory models, which employ piece of foam board. The table acts as a base such objective calculable rules as the basics of for the volume as it rises dynamically upwards mathematics or cognition theory in order to help while also becoming part of the sculpture us understand the internal relationships that itself and, like the roll of metal and Plexiglas, underpin our world, with a certain scepticism activating the empty spaces below and within toward all allegedly unshakeable shows of logic the sculpture – the negative spaces – in the or purely rational views of the world. Polanszky imagination of the viewer. Polanskzy himself uses a non-linear process – which he calls speaks of Primskulpturen, Hypertransforme ‘ad-hoc synthesis’ – in which he spontaneously Skulpturen, Konfusionsskulpturen, and the combines any available materials by means of Hyperbolische Räume as: ‘imagined conceptual superimposing, layering, overlapping, interlock- spaces of multidimensional structures [that], ing and folding in order to create random forms, just like the transaggregate structure, [escape] new structures and ‘translinear’ and ‘transaggre- direct observation.’ His sculptures appear just as gate’ objects that he sees as unstable products playfully light, fragile and open-ended as they of a subjective reality. are daringly constructed and have precisely balanced proportions. Neither one thing nor the Polanszky was already addressing questions other, they are always the in-between, subject of perception and recognition, appearance, to constant change. In its spatial concretisation, deception and illusion in such early, hand- TUBE SCULPTURE manifests itself as a random painted Super 8 films as Die Semiologie der snapshot of a process of constant transfor- Sinne (1976) and Der musikalische Affe (1979). mation that involves both artistic method and In the 1980s he integrated the principle of the subjective perception. (FL) random and the uncontrolled into his work in the shape of his Sprungfedern-, Sitz- und Wälzbilder, in which he often incorporated his own body into the creative process. In the 1990s he began his Reconstructions, in which he transformed selected waste material into intuitively created sculptures that took the form of wall-mounted or freestanding objects. More recently, his work has been exhibited in such

6 Rudolf Polanszky *1951 in Vienna, lives and works in Vienna TUBE SCULPTURE, 2011 diverse material, aluminium, glue, plastic, Plexiglas, steel, 147 × 75 × 50 cm Courtesy of the artist

Live auction, lot 2: € 40.000.-

7 British artist Jonathan Monk employs ironic and often humorous strategies to generate Monk is represented in this exhibition by a work appropriations of important works of Minimal from the series ‘The World in…’, clearly inspired Art and conceptual art. As a precise observer, by the series ‘Mappa’ by the Italian artist and Monk enters into dialogue with artists such graphic designer Alighiero Boetti (1940–1994). as Sol LeWitt, Ed Ruscha, Bruce Naumann, or Boetti created his embroidered maps of the Lawrence Weiner rather than creating a genuine world – between 1971 and his death in 1994 new work because he has a consciously crit- – as conceptual works, which were largely ical view of the (im)possibility of original, new produced in Afghanistan and Pakistan. These creation. Accordingly, the artist works in a wide reflect the geopolitical realities of the events of range of media and within a broad spectrum of the period by embroidering the flags of each both historical and fictional times and spaces. nation in the corresponding form of the coun- try and were produced in one or two years Jonathan Monk completed his BFA at Leicester (although, in some cases, they took much longer Polytechnic in 1988 and his MFA at Glasgow due to the political situation). Monk works with School of Art in 1991. He followed with a the means of appropriation but has his maps, in number of international solo exhibitions in opposition to Boetti, made in Germany. These locations including KINDL – Zentrum für Zeit- consist of a range of materials including shabby genössische Kunst, Berlin (2019), Kunsthaus sportswear, jeans, work wear or floral patterns Baselland, Basel/Muttenz (2016), MACRO, and evoke the stories and associations enclosed Rome (2015), Irish Museum of Modern Art, in these materials. In this case, safety vests – Dublin (2014), Centro De Arte Contemporáneo, cut up and reconstructed as maps of the world Malaga (2013), Kunstraum Dornbirn (2013) and – and their reflective strips, open up associa- the Palais de Tokyo/Musée d’Art Moderne de tions with dynamic processes of acceleration, la Ville de Paris (2008). He has participated be they refugee routes, rising temperatures, or in the Taipei Biennale (2000), Berlin Biennale dictatorial regimes. The work communicates a (2001) and Venice Biennale (2003 and 2009). sense of false security in the face of the global His works feature in a number of private and dangers against which we are powerless in light public international collections including in the of the countless catastrophes for which we only Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Daimler Contem- have ourselves to blame. porary, Berlin, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, In contrast, Holiday Paintings is the title of a LACMA, Los Angeles, MMK, Frankfurt, MoCA, series of small-format canvases in which Jona- Los Angeles, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, than Monk copies offers for package holidays MoMA, New York, Museo Tamayo, Mexico from travel agents, before finally selling the work City, Sammlung Haubrock, Berlin, Sammlung for the stated price. With this show of playful Reinking, Hamburg, Solomon R. Guggenheim frivolity he thus subverts and also lampoons the Museum, New York City, Statens Museum for notion of the market value of artworks. (AK) Kunst, Copenhagen and TATE Modern, London.

Holiday Painting (Ibiza #548), 2019 Acrylic on canvas, 60 × 40 cm Holiday Painting (Tenerife #612), 2019 Acrylic on canvas, 60 × 40 cm The World in Safety Vests II, 2019 fabric collage, 144 × 244 cm Courtesy of the artist

8 Jonathan Monk *1969 in Leicester, UK, lives and works in Berlin

Silent auction, Silent auction, lot 12: € 346.- lot 26: € 242.-

Live auction, lot 3: € 40.000.-

9 Best known for her ceramics (although also works in Hans Spinner’s prestigious workshop working in painting, watercolour, collages and in Grasse, France. Simone Fattal has had recent sculpture), Simone Fattal draws inspiration solo exhibitions at the MoMA PS1 in New York from her continuous interest in, and obsession (2019), Pinault Collection – Punta della Dogana with, archaeology, Sufi poetry and Islamic in Venice (2019), Musée Yves Saint Laurent mysticism and art in the territorial expansion of Marrakech (2018), the Rochechouart Depart- Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. Since her first piece mental Museum of Contemporary Art (2017), in clay took form in the late 1980s in Califor- and the Sharjah Art Foundation (2016). nia, the artist began to reactive a vital dialogue between ancient times and the modern world, The size of a shoebox, coloured in a tender hue as the material itself inherently holds a primeval of antique pink, Simone Fattal’s The Pink House tradition of archetypical crafting – mythology has the shape of a rectangular-yet-organic reaching back to God’s creation of Adam, who construct whose only opening, at the top, allows was made from earth. Her clay works oscillate a glimpse inside an otherwise protected space. within, and outside of, the boundaries of abstract It is rudimentary and without striking character- and figurative, fragile and solid. They explore the istics besides its shiny glazing; a small sculpture impact of displacement and its manifold political of a house, humble in its minimalistic simplicity. dimensions – issues that have regained global It seems to provide basic shelter for primeval importance in recent years. Simone Fattal’s human needs rather than glorify an architectural, delicate objects, their forms abstracted to their economic, or celestial ideal. Through its generic essence, their edges undefined and sprawling, form, referencing the architecture of Mesopota- thus tie together past and present, reminding mia and Sumerian-pioneer urban development, us of the eternally known: aspects, ideas and The Pink House serves as a universal symbol forms deeply rooted in our human nature. This for safety, a desire most vivid in periods of instinctive though often subconscious recogni- expulsion through political upheaval. In this tion of, and bonding with, her works may be best sense, Simone Fattal’s interest in archaeology described by artist and writer Etel Adnan, who and ancient cultures nurtures a simultaneously once said: ‘They [especially Fattal’s standing historic and contemporary urgency for individual figures] haunt us, because we recognize them and community safeguards. Her works, poetic although we have never seen them before.’ and repetitive in form, speak of an artistic prac- tice that foregrounds instinctive and essential Simone Fattal was born in Damascus, Syria, and comprehension of history, memory and culture, raised in Lebanon where she studied philoso- thus quietly protesting against forgetting and phy at the École des Lettres in Beirut. She then striving for a strong collective memory and moved to Paris, continuing her philosophical connectedness. (AK) pursuits at the Sorbonne. In 1969 she returned to Beirut, where she began working as a visual artist, exhibiting her paintings locally until the start of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). Settling in California in 1980 after fleeing Leba- non, she founded Post-Apollo Press, a publish- ing house dedicated to innovative and exper- imental literary work. During these post-trau- matic years, Simone Fattal stopped producing art altogether, until 1988 when she enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute. The open academic system prompted a return to her artis- tic practice and a newfound dedication to sculp- ture and ceramics. Since 2006, she produces

10 Simone Fattal *1942 in Damascus, Syria, lives and works in Paris The Pink House, 2007 glazed stoneware, 32 × 29.5 × 17 cm, unique Courtesy of the artist

Live auction, lot 4: € 18.000.-

11 Hans Schabus develops his artistic work The artistic travel projects, border crossings and through the ceaseless contemplation and expe- experimental arrangements of Hans Schabus rience of space and context. His photographs, can be read as a creative attempt to liberate films, sculptures, and site-specific interventions himself from conventional ideas and thought reflect both the psychological interior space and processes and subvert barriers set up by both immediate surroundings of the private studio, the himself and others. For his work Der Schacht public room for negotiation or transitory space von Babel, he dug a five-metre-deep hole in experienced during the artist’s many journeys. his studio and created a new space by filling His notion of space unfolds beyond a geomet- another with the excavated material, a symbol of rical/Euclidian conceptual pattern: spaces are the way in which borders – organised by means places for deliberation, environments, which of limitation and exclusion, whose constant establish themselves perpendicular to visible objective is to regulate the free circulation of reality, can be fractally moved and modified and people, goods, knowledge or discourse – can are influenced by personal, political, economic be overcome by the conquering of individually and social parameters. Space only emerges created spaces. where situations develop. Just as important for Hans Schabus as the individual work is the The artist’s items of clothing – shirts, trousers, context for which it has been created, the rela- shoes – that are cast in aluminium are also tionships that it enjoys and the opportunities for developed from a practice of methodological action that result. Meaning only emerges from reconstruction, an understanding based on the conscious steering of the visitor by the artist, physical acting and doing. Schabus is inter- from the exploitation of his experiential space ested in the processual quality and contextual and from the empathy of the observer. displacement of the material metamorphosis of the concrete into the shapeless: construction Hans Schabus studied at the Academy of Fine through deconstruction. During the casting Arts Vienna under Bruno Gironcoli. Since 2014, process, the shape is lost and the items of cloth- he has been Head of the Institute for Sculpture ing are partly incinerated while, at the same and Space at the University of Applied Arts. He time, they preserve themselves in a modified has exhibited widely in Austria and abroad in form. They simultaneously appear massive and locations including MUMOK, Vienna, Kunsthalle fragile, rigid and flexible. Items of clothing often Darmstadt (2017), MAK Center, Los Angeles offer hints of the personal memories and stories (2013), 21er Haus, Vienna (2012), Culturgest, of their wearers. Schabus’ aluminium sculptures Lisbon (2011), Barbican Art Centre, London are not frozen for an instant, they symbolise life’s (2008), SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico (2007), transformational processes, development and Kasseler Kunstverein (2006) and Secession decay, like a fragment of time that has flown by, Wien (2003/1996). He represented Austria at manifesting movement and action rather than the 51st Biennale in Venice in 2005. standing still. (FL)

Der Schacht von Babel, 2003 pigment print on Somerset Enhanced Paper, passe- partout, each 54.5 × 67.5 cm, framed, Ed. 4/5 Ockergelb (Ikarus), 2017 aluminium, iron, 119 × 51 × 13 cm Leuchthell orange (Ikarus), 2017 aluminium, iron, 33 × 42 × 40 cm Courtesy of the artist 12 Hans Schabus *1970 in Watschig, Austria, lives and works in Vienna

Silent auction, lot 19: € 3.500.-

Live auction, lot 5: € 11.000.-

Silent auction, lot 16: € 11.000.- 13 The work of Sébastien de Ganay moves in the objects formed from reinforcing rods bent into creative terrain between art and design, image grids and painted with bright colours. These and object, and addresses the acts of showing city plans, reinterpreted as highly-aesthetic, and representation. De Ganay’s objects are formally reduced objects, can be read as silent invariably difficult to categorise and play with contemporary witnesses to the col-lective the flexibility of form and meaning by oscil- memory of destruction, loss, and expulsion lating between abstraction and functionality, while, at the same time, being formally imbued autonomous sculpture and common everyday with a cool ele-gance and strange beauty. objects. Formally and aesthetically influenced by Minimal Art he tests the borders between Some years ago, Sébastien de Ganay developed genres with elegance and precision, often using a lounge chair with the objective that it could be humour to subvert familiar processes of percep- made any-where in the world with the simplest tion. In addition, de Ganay, who studied political of means. Consisting of four pieces of plywood sciences and film in New York in the 1980s, that can be assembled in just a few minutes analyses how political ideas or historical events with neither screws nor glue, it is cheap, easy become images and investigates the mechanism to transport, and comfortable. For this exhibi- whereby visual culture is appropriated as well as tion he has produced a series of chairs upon the roles of art, architecture and design in this which the names of destroyed Syrian cities have process. been printed in the colours of the national flag, green, red, white and black. In this way he has His works have featured in solo and group created a modular, flexible, combinable and exhibitions in locations including Häusler alterable setting for communication in which Contemporary. Mu-nich/Zurich, Galerie such common questions can be addressed as Ruzisczka, Salzburg (2019), Rauminhalt_Harald how cultural heritage and memories can be Bichler, Vienna (2018/2013), Kunsthalle Krems preserved and handed on to future generations. (2017), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2014), gandy (FL) gallery, Bratislava (2011), Daniel Abate Galeria, Buenos Aires (2005) and Richard Salmon Ltd, London (2001). Sébastien de Ganay is a co-founder of and co-publisher at onestar press (art books and films). For his series ‘Syrian Grids’, de Ganay translated the plans of such Syrian cities as Aleppo, Rakka, Kobane, La Goutta, Palmyra, Homs and Idlib, which have largely been destroyed during the years of civil war, into large-scale wall-mounted

Syrian Grid (MHARDEH), 2019 zinc coated steel, painted, 230 × 175 × 16 cm Syrian Grid (KOBANE), 2019 zinc coated steel, painted, 180 × 270 × 16 cm Syrian Chairs (HOMS), 2019 plywood, print, felt, each 75.5 × 51 × 68 cm Courtesy of the artist 14 Sébastien de Ganay *1962 in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, lives and works in Vienna and Bad Deutsch-Altenburg

Live auction, lot 6: € 12.000.-

Silent auction, lot 25: € 12.000.-

Silent auction, lot 27: € 900.-

15 The work of German artist Thomas Locher has (1989) and also features in the collections of been regarded as a groundbreaking contribution MOMA, New York, Boymans-van Beuningen in the areas of neo-conceptual and context art Rotterdam, Staatsgemäldesammlung, Munich, since the late 1980s. In this work he addresses Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and MUMOK Vienna. the grammatical rules of language and its addi- tional – enhancing or relativizing – functional- In this exhibition, Thomas Locher shows a ities, with a particular focus on representations large-scale photographic and textual work of law, society, economics, and politics. The from the series ‘Human Rights’. Handwritten photographic, textual, and pictorial composi- underlinings, questions and additions comment tions and expansive murals and installations upon the original text of Article 33. Prohibition form part of an investigation of deconstruction, of expulsion or return and refer to the current questions of openness, exchange, and offering almost daily discussion regarding the disparity as well as legal texts in such areas as human or between the ideal universal principle of never constitutional rights. By analysing the structure returning a refugee to an unsafe land and the of language as well as its embedded context practical application of this principle in light of and systems of meaning, he questions its appar- the fate of the individual. Thomas Locher first ently universal validity, its political and economic addressed these issues in an exhibition in the implications and its impact on the cohabitation Galerie Metropol in 1994, long before human- and actions of people. itarian catastrophes, geopolitical change and resulting movement of refugees triggered the Thomas Locher has been Rector of the Acad- current global debate about the human rights emy of Fine Arts Leipzig since 2017. He previ- crisis. His aim is neither to diminish the urgency ously taught at the Merzakademie Stuttgart and meaning of the document nor to discredit and Vienna University of Technology and was a it as an abstract, long-superseded catalogue of professor of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine idealised aspirations – a strategy that is becom- Arts in Copenhagen between 2008 and 2016. ing increasingly common and appears to enjoy His work has been shown in many international widespread public support. Rather, he makes exhibitions in such locations as Kunsthalle Wien clear the extent to which basic statements of (2017), MUMOK, Vienna (2015), Secession, principle can be blurred by constant addition Vienna (2013), ZKM Karlsruhe, Kunstmuseum and arbitrary, context-related, legal interpreta- Stuttgart, Kunstpalais Erlangen, MAK, Vienna tions and underlines the importance – today (2012), MoMA, New York (2006), Deichtorhal- in particular – of a return to the essence of len, Hamburg (2004), MOMAS, Saitama/Japan an international agreement to protect human (1994), MCA, Sydney (1992) and Tate, Liverpool dignity in all circumstances. (FL)

CONVENTION RELATING TO THE STATUS OF REFUGEES Article 33. Prohibition of expulsion or return 1. No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, 2002/2003 c-print, Diasec, aluminium frame, 232.8 × 177.8 × 6 cm Courtesy of the artist 16 Thomas Locher *1956 in Munderkingen, Germany, lives and works in Berlin & Leipzig

Live auction, lot 7: € 20.000.-

17 Adriana Czernin’s continuing fascination for system of symmetries and complex geometrical geometrical ornament is based on its structure, forms of the ornament into an asymmetrical which is simple and yet develops into compo- composition, which uses the opening into sitions that are as complex as they are diverse. constructive and deconstructive sections as a Every point of the ornament is interconnected means of recharging the historical archetype and plays an important role in the stability and while subverting its decorative character. As the genesis of the form. However, Czernin inter- a cultural, political and religious symbol that rupts this repetition of forms and rhythms to has been passed down for centuries, this orna- the level of (theoretical) infinity at the interface ment – executed as a series of basic forms in between drawing, design and architecture by shades of black and grey with an intense red methodically omitting points and connecting background – now contains a metaphor for the others with lines in a process of analytic decon- destruction and loss of that which it symbolises. struction. The asymmetry of the fragment, This element – highly significant in Islamic art presented as a meditative close-up that can due to the prohibition of images, destroyed by even seem close to bursting point, offers an colonisation, expulsion, war and theft, and now opportunity for a dynamic investigation of the alienated by Czernin – speaks of cultural obliter- static medium of drawing. ation, loss of identity, and the denial of history. In the spirit of the hypothetical infinity of the Adriana Czernin studied free graphics at the ornamental structure asymmetrical fragments University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her work continue beyond the canvas onto the walls of has featured in countless exhibitions in Austria the exhibition space. In this way, Czernin creates and abroad. Her solo exhibitions include a transcendental order whose detail refers MAK, Vienna (2018), Galerie Martin Janda contemplatively to itself but also the violent (2017/2013/2009/2006/2001), Structura Gallery, potential for its own destruction. (AK) Sofia (2018) and Institute for Contemporary Art, Sofia (2003) and group exhibitions include Ludwigforum Aachen, ACFNY, Albertina, Vienna, Deutsche Bank Collection, Berlin, Off Biennale, Cairo (2018), Lentos Linz, Belvedere 21, Vienna (2017), Galerie 5020, Salzburg (2014), Belve- dere, Vienna (2013), MOCAB, Belgrade (2012) and MUAC, Mexico City (2012).

Ibn Tulun, Cairo’s largest and best-preserved mosque, dates from the 9th century. Its minbar, a form of pulpit from which the imam preaches, was built in 1296 and partly saved from demoli- tion in the 19th century. The remaining wooden elements formed the basis for Adriana Czernin’s work that featured in two exhibitions at MAK in 2014 and 2018. By removing or accentuating individual elements, the artist translates the strict

18 Adriana Czernin *1969 in Sofia, Bulgaria, lives and works in Vienna and Rettenegg Ibn-Tulun 112, 2019 pencil, coloured pencil, tempera on paper, 120 × 120 cm Courtesy of Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna

Live auction, lot 8: € 9.500.-

19 Anna Jermolaewa is a precise observer of Istanbul, MUMOK, MUSA, Museum auf Abruf, commonplace situations and inconspicuous Kontakt Collection, Belvedere, Wien Museum, objects whose social and political value she Bank Austria Art Collection, EVN Collection and questions and reveals in her work. In this way, the Arbeiterkammer in Vienna as well as the banal everyday items often become the themes Tyrolean State Museum Ferdinandeum, Inns- of the videos, photographs, paintings, drawings bruck and the Landesgalerie Linz. and installations that the artist processes into narratives. Power structures and the conditio A curious object on a lonely beach on a humana in both private and public contexts small island in Cambodia: Anna Jermolaewa – subjects whose roots lie in her political past discovers the apparently home-made, floating – provide the unifying thematic structure of her construction when out walking and photographs oeuvre. Journeys play an important role in this it against the backdrop of the blue sea and work, enabling her to draw energy and inspira- wooded hills of the island. However, she can’t tion from the experience of the new, however figure out how or whether this ‘found object’ innocuous this may appear to be. Jermolaewa works. It looks like the frame of a raft, albeit one fled from Russia, via Poland, to Austria in 1989, without a floor, with which one was able to flee shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain. Perse- the remote place where it has now itself been cuted as a political dissident she initially wanted abandoned. Wooden poles and plastic pipes to travel via West Berlin to the USA but was are held together by wire, empty plastic bottles arrested crossing the border from Austria to have been fixed to the side of the substructure. Germany. Able to apply for asylum, she has lived Fishing enters the mind, but the object lacks in Vienna ever since. much that would be needed for a successful catch, especially nets. It also has nothing to do Anna Jermolaewa studied art history at the with romantic fantasies of circumnavigating University of Vienna and painting and new the world – it seems like a relic from an escape media at the Academy of Fine Arts. She was that failed before it had even begun or, although Professor of Media Art at Karlsruhe University this is less likely due to the minimalist design, for Arts and Design/ZKM (2006-11) and Visiting brought its passengers to this paradisiacal Professor of Art in a Contemporary Context at place. The sense of alienation and lack of any Kunsthochschule Kassel (2016-17). Since 2018 further explanation with which Anna Jermo- she has taught experimental design at the laewa presents this object to us opens up a University of Art and Design Linz. Her solo exhi- wide range of ideas, associations, desires, and bitions include Galerie Johann Widauer, Vienna depths that we associate with the movement (2018/2016/2012), Zeller van Almsick, Vienna, of refugees, both instinctively and in the light of Alkovi, Helsinki (2018), Museum of the History current events. (AK) of Photography, St. Petersburg (2017), Belve- dere 21, Vienna, Kunsthaus Nexus, Saalfelden, Kerstin Engholm Galerie, Vienna (2016/2013), WRO Art Center, Wrocław, National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2015), Kunsthalle Krems, Camera Austria, Graz, Salzburger Kunstverein (2012), kunstraum lakeside, Klagenfurt, XL Gallery, Moscow and Institute of Contemporary Art, Sofia (2011). Her work is found in many interna- tional collections, including Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, Berlin, Kiasma, Helsinki, Vehbi Koç Foundation,

20 Anna Jermolaewa *1970 in Leningrad, USSR, lives and works in Vienna Found Object II, 2016 digital print, 119.5 × 80.5 cm Courtesy of the artist

Live auction, lot 9: € 4.500.-

21 Visual artist and poet Babi Badalov expresses sounds, or pronunciation. The combination of his ideas through visual poetry, art objects, such linguistic similarities, their rearrangement installations and live performances. He also and (political) manipulation is at the core of Babi experiments with words and writes obscure Badalov’s visual poetry. At times it takes the poetry, mixing languages and images of differ- form of a daily diary filled with pictorial material ent cultures. His work is dedicated to linguistic and political content. Occidentalism/Orientalism explorations researching the limits of language strikes one as rather innocent with a selection and the borders it imposes upon its users, based of loose, painted canvases of which Different on his personal experience of linguistic inconve- opens the widest horizon. Migrant/Seagrant niences while travelling. refers to on-going concerns at Europe’s outer borders and is clear in its message, while Babi Badalov’s works are in collections around someone/somehow/somewhere/somewhat/ the world: Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, somewho may be read in philosophical correla- MuHKA Museum Contemporary Art, Antwerp, tion to the exhibition’s main focus. The nomad Azerbaijan State Museum of Art, Baku, Kunst- life of an artist, traveller, migrant, or refugee, not museum of Emden, Martigny Art Museum, only causes a challenging adaptation period of Oetcker Collection, Bielefeld, Arina Kowner cultural integration, but also may turn one into Collection, Zurich and Zimmerli Art Museum, a prisoner of language. Badalov’s projects play New Jersey. His recent exhibitions include the with these kind of linguistic notions quietly and Yarat Contemporary Art Center, Baku (2019), calmly, yet powerfully, hoping to sensitize his Erarta, Museum of Contemporary Art, St. Peters- audience for larger geopolitical questions. (FL) burg (2018), MUSAC, León (2017), Tensta Kons- thall, Stockholm, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 11th Gwangju Biennale (all 2016), Kunstraum Munich (2015), Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2015) and New Museum, New York (2014

While traveling through foreign countries, we may come across words written in the same alphabet as ours, though with different meaning,

22 Babi Badalov *1959 in Lerik, Azerbaïdjan, lives and works in Paris Someone, 2018 acrylic paint on canvas, 103.5 × 92.5 cm Courtesy of Galerie Jérôme Poggi, Paris

Live auction, lot 10: € 4.000.-

23 Khaled Barakeh is a conceptual artist and Through acts of joining and separation, decon- cultural activist. He graduated from the Faculty textualizing and reconstructing narratives, of Fine Arts in Damascus, Syria in 2005 and blurring the lines between real and fictional, received his MFA at Funen Art Academy and highlighting presence by absence – that in Odense, Denmark in 2010. In 2013, he of words, objects, individuals, victims, bodies completed a Meisterschuler study at the Städel- – Barakeh creates alternative scenarios and schule Art Academy in Frankfurt a.M., Germany. hypothetical aspects of society, politics, art, and He has exhibited at Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, The culture, aiming to not only generate new real- 11th Shanghai Biennale, Salt Istanbul, Kunsthalle ities, but also provoke the viewer, challenging Brandts in Overgaden Denmark, The Frankfurter their expectations and assumptions, inciting Kunstverein, Artspace New Zealand, The Busan dormant viewpoints and contexts. Biennale, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, and many other institutions and In the framework of the exhibition The Other is venues around the world. Oneself, Barakeh combines Memory Scaffold- ing and Materialised Distance, two parts of his Originally trained as a painter, Barakeh has on-going investigative work ‘The Shake’, drawn developed a stronger focus on contempo- from Maurice Harron’s iconic public sculpture rary art practices upon moving to Europe. His Hands Across the Divide and symbolising the multi-layered works still show influences of division between Catholics and Protestants in traditional methods and techniques while form- the doubly named City of Derry/Londonderry in ing a modern collection of reversed processes, Northern Ireland. ‘The Shake’ series reflects on repetition of forms, sarcastic commentaries, and those two hands frozen in an unfinished greet- awareness-raising pieces that communicate ing, almost meeting but never really joining and his thoughts and intensions through a distinct – even more importantly – the consistent gap artistic language. Drawing from his observations between them. Materialised Distance captures of both familiar and strange places, witnessing that unresolvable space and the absence it repetitive and constantly unsolved social injus- creates, transforming a negative space into a tice through different points of view, Barakeh palpable mass. Memory Scaffolding consists approaches creative practice as a tool of social of eleven by-products of the 360° scanning change and cultural preservation. Through process: peripheral background data pulling his – not infrequently politically involved – art the city, the street, and the strand into the he analyses themes of freedom as opposed installation. The stuttered movements of pass- to man-made systems of oppression and ers-by, fabric blowing in the wind, scaffolding censorship, unrestrained movement versus and bricks, are laid over the still-but-distorted the concept of borders. Considered a part of a sculpture, emerging vortex-like from the central global artivism movement, the artist uses visual absence between the hands. The monument references of elements of everyday culture represents the solid stillness of history and its to challenge the perception of existing, stag- memory, while the present remains elusive and nant power structures and their connection to difficult to capture. Both works are a paradigm personal and collective identity, highlighting the of the exhibition’s aim, creating an atmo- paradoxes of modern global society. sphere of mutual understanding and building a common space between the One and the Other, a space where we can meet, interact and shake hands. (KB/FL)

24 Khaled Barakeh *1976 in Damascus, Syria, lives and works in Berlin The Shake - Materialised Distance, 2013 ceramic, 23 × 17 × 15 cm Courtesy of the artist

Silent auction, lot 11: € 13.500.-

25 Jewish heritage and culture, individual (hi) stories, migration, identity, literature, mytholo- Heavy steps of a giant, carrying a huge tree, set gies, memory: Mirta Kupferminc’s multidis- before a surreal, loose background and staccato ciplinary work draws inspiration from a variety music in a black and white cosmos: the begin- of fields and representations of the world. She ning of Mirta Kupferminc’s video animation En was to a Hungarian mother and a Polish father, Camino (‘On the Way’) is loaded with strong who together migrated to Argentina in 1948 as images of slow and constant movement. The refugees after having survived Auschwitz. Her Tree of Jesse comes to mind, the depiction home is Buenos Aires, a synergy of multiple of Christ’s genealogy, especially as the crown ethnic groups and base for her thinking and hosts another man carrying a tree, appearing practice. Envisioning a truly humanistic global to look the same as the one before, walking scope, she retraces carefully researched narra- behind a row of other characters carrying trees tives, often anchored in Jewish culture or her or backpacks themselves. Moving further up his family’s history, generating universal and vivid treetop, the same arrangement of characters poetry, sculptures, paintings, videos, and prints. appears, as well as the first colourful object, Her work incorporates political iconographic a chair. A wind comes up, we change scenes gestures and their inherent themes of pilgrim- and find ourselves with a woman who carries age, exile, and (lost) culture, as well as, for exam- a suitcase and a bag, out of which hop five ple, the ideas and writings of Jorge Luis Borge, new surreal characters. We follow them in a linking him to Kabbalah in a mutual project with somewhat fragmented narrative throughout the the poet and scholar Saul Sosnowski. The artist’s film. They seem like descendants of Hierony- oeuvre spans three decades and much of it mus Bosch figures: puppets, hybrids between culminates in a concept she refers to as ‘built dinosaur and human, crippled beings. Mirta identity’, the fierce belief in developing, grow- Kupferminc sets an atmosphere of uncanny ing, and fostering one’s character apart from continuous wandering amidst light and jovial imposed forms of identity. moments creating a full cycle towards the end as we come back to realize that we haven’t left Mirta Kupferminc has had, and was part in, the first giant tree-carrier. Some motives guide numerous international exhibitions, most recent us via their reappearance, like an observing, ones including: Palazzo Fontana, Venice, Festi- bent over woman leaning on a cane wearing val de la Luz, Buenos Aires (2016), Fine Art a checkerboard patterned headscarf or the Museum, Shanghai (2014), Galerie ArchivArte, fiery red, at one point burning, Tower of Babel. Bern (2013), Fundación Alon para las Artes, For Kupfermic, ‘Babel’ means ‘confusion’. She Buenos Aires, La Fundación de Desarrollo states, ‘The Other was born when the Tower of Agrícola, Santa Cruz, Bolivia (2012), Centro Babel was destroyed, when different languages de Cultura Judaica, São Paulo, Brazil (2011), were created, and people had to “translate” Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of their thoughts to co-inhabit the same territory’. Religion, NYU, New York (2009), Mary L. Nohl Her characters are carefully developed protag- Galleries at the University of Wisconsin-Milwau- onists carrying their roots, cities, and cultures kee (UWN) and University of Maryland (2008), with them, returning on prints, and in her other Cervantes Institute, Chicago, and the National works, as almost mythical symbols for migra- Library, Buenos Aires (2007). Her works repre- tion, identity, and heritage. Their everlasting sented Argentina at the Third Jerusalem Biennial circulation within a complex and multifarious (2017) and were part of the Art Biennial Jerusa- cosmos reflects the not only current but also lem (2015), Biennial Internationale de la Inzicine permanent state of global transition, an inter- Aqua Termi (2009), the International Printmak- national and intercultural common denominator ing and Drawing Biennial, Taipei (2006/2004) that may define new values and histories in the among others. Her work is held in such institu- process. (AK) tional and private collections.

26 Mirta Kupferminc *1955 in Buenos Aires, lives and works in Buenos Aires Lengua Madre, 2019 print on Hahnemühle paper, gold leaf, pen, 58 × 98 cm En Camino, 2001-2019 print on Hahnemühle paper, pen, 58 × 98 cm Courtesy of the artist

Silent auction, lot 39: € 3.000.-

Silent auction, lot 13: € 2.500.- 27 The famous poem ‘Un coup de dés jamais Milan (2010). Her work was part of group shows n’abolira le hasard’ (1914) by Stéphane Mallarmé around the world: African Art Book Fair at the was Raffaella della Olga’s trigger. After read- Dakar Biennale (2018), Frac Paca, Marseille ing it for the first time in 2009 and after having (2018), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2015), Baxter St stopped using photography as a means of at CCNY, New York (2015), Fondation Calouste expression two year earlier, she developed a Gulbenkian, Paris (2015), MoMA, New York work by the same name in which she covered (2013) and Jeu de Paume, Paris (2013). Her a Gallimard edition of Mallarmé’s publication works are in the collection of the Centre National with phosphorescent powder. The words and des Arts Plastiques (CNAP), Paris and in various structure would reappear in the dark, glow- private collections in France and Belgium. ing when being exposed to a light source and recurring to the starry night sky, thus opening a The words ‘Hope-Fear, Hope-Fear’, a polar discourse on light, space and time. One could mantra repeated infinitely, can be read in see multiple surfaces of words on the following individual, red or black blocks facing different pages, creating a visual sign without having directions, sown together into a patch of cloth. added a single word to the original script. This The intense red, signifying attention, is visually simultaneity between text and image as the contrasted with a fickle, fleeing black; both set baseline in Mallarmé’s text became the aesthetic against each other in a checkerboard pattern and formal expression in her works. In 2011 she but united in their sameness as conventional started composing visual poems using typewrit- typographic signs. This work by Raffaella della ers. Raffaella della Olga finds typewriting, by all Olga was originally produced on the occasion means, conceptual with its analogue procedure of a group show in Lebanon and intended to freeing the artist of the digital age through express core human emotions when confronted mechanical motions. This has evolved into an with war and exile through basic colours that infinite exploration and expansion of space are created by the use of a typewriter’s machine within a page, which is often textile. Cut-out and ribbon. Re-establishing the work within the printed fabrics are being reconstructed into open new context of this exhibition, the artist takes a and vibrant grids, blurring the lines between text strong political stance: without claiming to have and textile, words and signs. Visual poetry and a vocation as a speaker for or against any cause, conceptual art – and in some works with fabric Hope-Fear, Hope-Fear expresses a sense for cut-outs, also Op Art – come together in capes communities that live in the constant dichotomy inspired by permutation systems in the spirit of in between those two. (RdO/AK) Sol LeWitt, Alighiero Boetti, or Hanne Darboven, though not merely minimalistic but intimate and sensual.

Raffaela della Olga studied Law at the Univer- sité degli Studi di Milano and became a crim- inal lawyer briefly before studying Fine Arts at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan. She has been living and working in Paris since 2007. Recent solo exhibitions include: Florence Loewy, Paris (2019), Galerie Laurent Godin, Paris (2018), Galerie Dilecta, Paris (2018/2017), Treignac Projet, Treignac (2011) and N.O.Gallery,

28 Raffaella della Olga *1967 in Bergamo, Italy, lives and works in Paris HOPE-FEAR, HOPE-FEAR, 2012 typewriter on fabric, 160 × 200 cm Courtesy of the artist

Silent auction, lot 14: € 6.500.-

29 Italian artist Elisabetta Benassi critically trapped behind enemy lines. The maps could observes the cultural, political and artistic legacy be used without a rustle or crackling, and also of modernity, as well as broader, often contro- be hidden inside uniforms, such as in a seam versial political and cultural themes of our time. or inside a collar, which wouldn’t betray their Using literary, psychoanalytical, cinematographic existence during an inspection. They could also and political references and diverse media be used to patch clothes, filter water, make a – installation, photography, video – she thus bandage, or fashion a sling for an injured arm. emotionally engages and questions the viewer Elisabetta Benassi has converted these silk while tracing troubled and contested timelines. maps into a different kind of object. Enclosed in A questioning of contemporary identity and the transparent Plexiglas boxes, rather than helping conditions of the present in the complexity of soldiers find their way home, the maps recall the materiality, history, and memories, emerge from contemporary split between the southern and the background of her pieces. Reconstructing an northern borders of the Mediterranean sea and interpretation of the material world and extend- the perilous crossing attempted by tens of thou- ing the field of human knowledge are fundamen- sands of migrants, sailing from the same shores tal aspects of her work. Allied soldiers once tried to escape. Not only is ‘going back home’ still a dangerous, often Her work has been shown worldwide, e.g. deadly, journey, but it is also the very notion of MOSTYN, Llandudno,Wales; Museo Nazi- ‘home’ that we are now forced to reconsider. onale Romano, Rome; Peter Freeman Inc, (EB) New York (2019); Centre George Pompidou, Paris (2018); Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia; Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; MAXXI Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Rome (2017); 56th/55th/54th Venice Biennale (2015/2013/2011); Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (2014); Fondazione Merz, Turin; CRAC Alsace, Altkirch (2013); Secession, Vienna; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2012).

Also called ‘evasion maps’, silk maps were made during World War II for American and British servicemen to use in case of capture or being

30 Elisabetta Benassi *1966 in Rome, Italy Mouchoir (TERRA), 2019 escape map on silk, Plexiglas, 10 × 15 × 1.5 cm Courtesy of the artist

Silent auction, lot 15: € 2.500.-

31 Florian Unterberger has been working on his semiotic sense refers to its content – is only series ‘Totale Bibliothek’ – a constantly growing revealed upon translation. Florian Unterberger’s collection of drawings whose starting point is an self-created alphabet is read from inside to alphabet that he created – for almost a decade. outside while his letters border on one another, These are architectural and conceptual works equal in breadth and form and without being consisting of an abstract matrix in which combi- separated by any spacing. For example, like all nations of specific colours and forms consti- vowels the letter ‘E’ has just one colour and is tute a visualisation of the letters of the Latin completely white. Like segments of rooms in alphabet. The yearning to be able to fluently architectural models, the elements broadcast read the symbolised images obliges observers his message ‘SAVE ME’, the silent, encrypted to immerse themselves in Unterberger’s world cry for help, which is only comprehensible to and appropriate his code. The colours are trained recipients but, without the means for reduced to defined primary colours (red, blue transcription, must remain unheard. Some of and yellow) and non-colours (black and white), his designs contain entire urban landscapes. which correspond superficially (e.g. seen two-di- His approach to analogue drawing is clearly mensionally) with the Dutch De Stijl movement. architectural and, as in the case of sketches Like such representatives of this movement as and building plans, demands a spatial imag- Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg and, from ination and understanding for sequences of 1918, Gerrit Rietveld, Florian Unterberger rejects performative movement. Yet his work is also a traditional understanding of art and seeks to related to concrete poetry, whose approach he implement a genuinely new and abstract formal radically continues. Rather than removing indi- language and the all-embracing notion of art, vidual letters from their context as a means of which also includes architecture. creating iconic symbols, he finds his own visual translation of letters into abstract forms, which Florian Unterberger studied under Wilhelm he processes in a type of ‘constructive poetry’. Holzbauer, Zvi Hecker and Zaha Hadid at the This leads to the generation, not of a universal University of Applied Arts Vienna. The locations language, but an artificial code. The aspiration of his group exhibitions include AIL Vienna to find an all-encompassing worldview is deeply (2019), NTU Singapore, Royal College of Art engrained in Florian Unterberger’s work: an London (2018), Kunstraum am Schauplatz, aspiration that, at the end of the day, is doomed Vienna (2017) Christine König Galerie, Vienna to remain unfulfilled and, in conceptual terms, (2015), Parallel (2015), Architekturzentrum Wien can be associated with the infinitely conceived (2013), Galerie d’Architecture, Paris (2013), attempts to capture the world carried out by Forum Frohner, Krems (2013) and Aedes Berlin Hanne Darboven or On Kawara. (AK) (2012), Muzej Premoderne Umetnosti, Litija, Slovenia (2011), Design Center, Bratislava (2010), Künstlerhaus Vienna (2005/2002/2000/1999). Florian Unterberger is a co-founder of the exhi- bition space VENTILAZIONE in Vienna (2009- 14).

From a distance one recognises an ‘S’, but the fact that the form is composed from six letters and, hence, is an indexical symbol – that in the

32 Florian Unterberger *1973 in Bad Ischl, Austria, lives and works in Vienna and Bad Ischl SAVE ME, 2018 coloured pencil on paper, 75 × 65 cm, framed, from the series ‘Totale Bibliothek’ Courtesy of the artist

Silent auction, lot 17: € 3.000.-

33 The work of Austrian artist Klaus Mosettig is Simon Preston Gallery, New York (2010), Seces- largely based on time-consuming, procedural sion Wien, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, investigation. Before predominantly turning his Kunstraum Niederösterreich, Vienna (2009), attention to the medium of drawing he devel- Austrian Cultural Forum, Tokyo, Japan (2007) oped an approach to sculpture based on long- and Neue Galerie Graz (2006). term processes and the examination of nature. He cultivated apple trees that he forced to grow The drawing presented in the exhibition is taken in a certain direction until they took on their own from the five-part series ‘Handwriting’. The sculptural forms or he allowed ants to produce model for this was the leaf of a table that stood his work, leaving himself subservient to nature in the transit hall of the harbour building on the and succumbing to its idiosyncratic course by Greek island of Leros in 2015 and was used surrendering his own artistic sovereignty and for taking fingerprints and, hence, determining allowing chance to play a constructive role. In the identity of the thousands of people who his large-format naturalist drawings, Mosettig crossed the sea while fleeing from war-torn combines slide projection with meticulously Syria and other crisis-ridden parts of the Middle detailed work to translate models from a range East. The table acted as a place of negotiation of contexts: art-historical works such as the where refugees and customs officers faced abstract compositions of Jackson Pollock or each other, where identities were constructed Joseph Albers are transferred into series of and discarded and where hasty processes drawings just as readily as the images of the determined the fates of individuals. Traces of Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 found on a flea fingerprints and smudges of ink from the stamp market, children’s drawings by his own daughter pads and rollers have registered on this surface or, simply, dust on the lens of the slide projector as an abstract template for this bureaucratic that can be seen in the beam of light as it proj- registration procedure. Mosettig translates this ects into the void. The origin of a motif is just as procedure, line by line, in an equally mechanical immaterial for Mosettig as the months that he transmission process. Even if the faces spends working on the consistently figurative and stories of the individuals are lost in the translation of his models into fine, black-and- anonymous mass, the traces of their journey are white hatching. It is the process, rather than its thus given their silent manifesto. duration, that is decisive. The passage of time is The motifs of Mosettig’s series of drawings automatically registered in the pictorial ground ‘Planes’ originate from the same context. because that which appears immaterial from a While many of the refugees on Leros waited distance reveals itself, from close up, as an area for their papers to be issued, they scratched of elaborate manual work that emancipates itself things like hearts, names, and signatures into from that which it represents. the surrounding plane trees. Even if the healing of the trees’ bark may eventually foil these Mosettig studied at the Academy of Fine Arts attempts to leave a lasting, subjective mark on Vienna under Bruno Gironcoli as well as at the their first safe place after a perilous crossing, Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. they remain present in the drawings of the artist. His works have been shown widely in solo and (FL) group exhibitions at, for example, KHM, Vienna (2019), Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Kunsthalle Krems (2018), Belvedere 21, Vienna, Buchmann Galerie, Berlin (2016), Saatchi Gallery London, Shaheen Gallery, Cleveland (2013), Kunsthalle Karlsruhe (2012), Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Stadt- galerie Schwaz, Modern Art Gallery, London (2011), MUMOK, Vienna, Kunstraum Dornbirn,

34 Klaus Mosettig *1975 in Graz, Austria, lives and works in Vienna Planes 1, 2018 pencil on paper, 77 × 82 cm Courtesy of the artist

Silent auction, lot 18: € 7.000.-

35 Gerold Tagwerker has been reflecting upon and blind spots, it does so not as a complete both formal and content-related aspects of reflection but as a deconstructed image. The modern buildings and spatial structures in mirror, which has been a representational and photos, sculptures, and installations since symbolic object in art since the Middle Ages, in the ‘90s. Tagwerker makes use of industrially particular the Baroque, has been undergoing the produced source materials such as fluores- liberating transformation from depicted object cent tubes, mirror glass, tiles and galvanised to artist’s material since the 1960s and has mesh to investigate, inspired by Minimal Art, become a medium of existential-philosophical such semantic areas as light, rhythm, the grid, and perceptual-psychological investigation. perspective, and the perceptive experience. And yet it is only the view of the other in the In contrast with the Minimalists, who strove mirror that facilitates the perception of the self for objectivity, depersonalisation, non-com- and, thanks to the centralising power of the position and non-relation and rejected all mirror image, establishes – according to Jaques subjective involvement, Tagwerker consciously Lacan – the hitherto disparate identity of a small refers to forms, whose architectural references child. The large, circular broken area of mirror and cultural-historical meaning he constantly that opens up the view of the black-painted addresses. He even replaces the theory of wooden supports in broken.mirror#3 (The Blue perception of the neutral observer, which was Gardenia_für F.L.) appears to be the result of almost dogmatically adhered to by the repre- an enormously violent external event, such as sentatives of Minimal Art, with the notion that a shot from a firearm. Associations with wilful neither forms nor their visual representation and destruction by a third party also come to mind, reception are free from socio-cultural aspects as do one’s vulnerability and impermanence. and conventions. At the same time, both the title of Tagwerk- er’s work, with its allusion to the film noir of Gerold Tagewerker studied in the painting class the same name by Fritz Lang, and its coolly at Mozarteum University in Salzburg under Peter reduced aesthetic, with its cleanly executed Prandstetter and Herbert Stejskal. His work has broken edges, refer to its artificiality and to the been shown in numerous exhibitions at venues construction of unreal and illusory worlds, which including MAAT, Lisbon (2019), Museum für lead to new existential reflections on reality with Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, Wien Museum, the help of such media as film and photography. Vienna (2018), Galerie Stadtpark, Krems (2016), Construction through deconstruction also plays Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn & Taxis, Bregenz, 21er a significant role in Gerold Tagwerker’s (de) Haus, Vienna, Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna, collage entrée libre. Posters that are pasted Austrian Cultural Forum New York (2015), Öster- on top of one another and whose graphic and reichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, MUMOK, colourfully garish aesthetic advertise free entry, Vienna (2014), Forum Stadtpark, Graz (2010), have been torn and revealed, layer-by-layer, in Galerie Stadtpark, Krems (2008), Kunstmuseum such a way that only a fragmentary memory St.Gallen (2006), ZKM, Karlsruhe (2005) and of the once demanding character of the words Kunsthaus Bregenz (2000). The locations of his remains, evoking – in the context of the exhibi- installations for public spaces include Vienna, tion – associations of inclusion and exclusion, of Vorarlberg, and Upper Austria. awakened hopes and disappointed illusions. (FL)

The role of viewers of Tagwerker’s works is not to passively ‘take them in’. Much more, they are required to become active participants that inscribe and perpetuate themselves in the work. A constantly reoccurring raw material for his work is the mirror, which reflects both the space surrounding the work of art and the viewer, despite the fact that, robbed of its illu- sory function by its broken or deflected surfaces

36 Gerold Tagwerker *1965 in Feldkirch, Austria, lives and works in Vienna broken.mirror#3 (The Blue Gardenia _ für F.L.), 2015, mirror, ink on wood, 103 × 153 cm entrée libre, 1999 poster paper on chipboard, 24 × 67.6 cm Courtesy of the artist

Silent auction, lot 28: € 7.5 0 0.-

Silent auction, lot 20: € 3.000.- 37 Since the late 1960s, Nil Yalter has been her works include Tate Modern, London, Istan- developing an artistic approach in which she bul Modern, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, uses a range of media including video, painting, Ludwig Museum, the Sammlung Verbund photography, drawing and multimedia installa- collection, Vienna. tion as a means of transferring scientific-docu- mentary research into fictional narratives. These EXILE IS A HARD JOB can be read as a witness address socio-political subjects such as labour to the historical phase during the Trente migration, cultural identity, and gender roles by Glorieuses (the three decades of economic consciously combining general, historiographical growth following the Second World War) in facts with personal experience. Born in Cairo, which France actively recruited foreign migrant to parents with Turkish roots, she grew up in workers and many French citizens living in Istanbul where she autodidactically developed Algeria and North Africa returned to the moth- an abstract-expressionist pictorial language erland during the period of decolonisation. influenced by Russian-born, Paris-based painter In the videos and photographs of the series Serge Poliakoff. In 1965, due to the almost Turkish Immigrants, which she started in 1976, complete absence of any contemporary cultural Yalter documented the sometimes-catastrophic scene in Istanbul, Yalter moved to Paris where living conditions of Turkish immigrant families her practice developed as a reflection upon in the new high-rise settlements of the French Russian constructivism that extended toward banlieue, which had been built from scratch basic geometrical abstract forms. She became with a complete absence of historical or cultural active in the Turkish Communist Party via its context. The black-and-white photos form the Department of Culture and joined two women basis for a series of drawings in which Yalter artist collectives while interweaving explic- only executed the subjects’ silhouettes. The itly socio-critical, anti-capitalist and feminist absence of their faces, hence their identities, discourses in her own artistic work under the points to the marginalisation of immigrants influence of the socio-political upheaval of the in a society in which they have neither a vote late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Migration, nomadism, nor representation. Since 2012 she has been and the living and working conditions of women combining the photos and drawings of Turkish are amongst the recurring themes in Yalter’s Immigrants into large-format posters remi- works, which are imbued with lyrical poetry and niscent of cinematic sequences, which she aspects of irrationality and combine fragments of has now hung, without the permission of the the present and past in a complex structure that authorities, in seven different cities, completing includes both the fragility of historical temporal- them each time with the help of immigrants ity and the experience thereof. with whom she adds the sentence “Exil ist harte Arbeit” (Exile is a Hard Job) in large red letters Nil Yalter is regarded as one of the pioneers of in the predominant language of the surrounding both video art and French feminist art. Since area. With this phrase, originally taken from a her first solo exhibition in the Musée d’Art poem by the Turkish poet Nâzim Hikmet, Nil Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1973, her work Yalter creates a work by and for immigrants, has been seen internationally in numerous solo whose simultaneous presence in and absence and group exhibitions and most recently in from the work follows a strategy designed to retrospectives at: Ludwig Museum, Cologne, empower people who are often marginalised in Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-On-Hudson/ the public discourse, while also rendering them New York, MAC VAL Museum Vitry-sur-Seine, visible and urging us to pay heed to their stories France (2019), Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna and traditions. (FL) (2018/2016/2014/2011), Wiels, Brussels (2017), Tate Modern, London (2016), 10th Gwangju Biennale (2014), 13th Istanbul Biennale (2013), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2012), Galleria Nazi- onale d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2010), and PS1 MOMA, N.Y. (2008). Collections that feature

38 Nil Yalter *1938 in Cairo, lives and works in Paris EXILE IS A HARD JOB, 1976/2015 digital print on textile, neon (unique), 276 × 335 cm EXIL IST HARTE ARBEIT, 2014 acrylic paint on a digital colour print, (about 30 unique pieces) 84.1 × 118.9 cm Courtesy of Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna

Silent auction, lot 21: € 60.000.-

Silent auction, lot 40: € 2.200.- 39 Humanity is driven by an innately playful and inquiring mind and the hope of being able to In Martin Walde’s work it is not only the material derive objective and predictable rules from the that is subject to processes of transformation. study of coincidence, when one looks beyond They also emerge from sought-after interaction the customary, commonplace urge to explore with, and participation of, the public at each the underlying processes of nature and render exhibition. Ball Turned Bag – Working Vision these measurable, representable, and capable of consists of numerous bags that hang by their simulation. Since the late 1980s, Martin Walde straps from the ceiling like a bunch of grapes, has used ingeniously experimental set-ups produced from colourful basketballs casually laid and investigations of materials in an attempt to out on a workbench. Walde sees his work not consciously find a place in his artistic work for as a closed object in space but as a temporary coincidence as a category beyond causality place of production, a creative invitation to the and determinism. The outward appearance of visitor to get involved in making the shoulder his sculptures, photographs, and drawings, only bags, a way of having a share in the constantly emerges during the process of being produced growing installation. Production is supervised in from often flexible, plastic and unstable, mate- situ by trained workers who pass on their craft rials such as glass, silicon, gelatinous or sticky skills to all who are interested. Even if it is not substances, polystyrene, hair, aromas, or plasma possible to directly intervene in the transforma- light. It is sometimes hard to transform such tional and functional process – one quarter is materials into pre-defined forms and the works cut from each basketball before fasteners and can pass through a variety of aggregate states. straps are added to create a shoulder bag – Hence, both coincidence and failure are constant each example is different due to the individual and intentional – albeit thoroughly constructive – combination of the materials and skill of the companions of Walde’s serial experiments. maker. The sale of the bags in the exhibition finances the production facility. Working Vision Martin Walde studied under Max Weiler is far from being a utopia. Walde’s constantly and Arnulf Rainer at the Academy of Fine growing installation transforms the neutral exhi- Arts Vienna. His works have been seen in bition space into a sort of stage, a performative numerous international solo and group exhi- work of art in which visitors mutate from voyeurs bitions at venues including ZKM Karlsruhe into actors and traces of the co-production (2019/2015/2014/2009), Sydney Biennale are assimilated into an integrative process that (2018), Kochi Biennale (2017), Haus Konstruktiv, becomes part of a collective memory. (FL) Zurich (2016), Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna (2014), MARTa Herford (2012/2010), Moscow Bien- nale (2011), Hayward Gallery, London (2008), Neue Galerie Graz (2007), Kunsthaus Baselland (2006), Galerie im Taxispalais (2005), Fuchu Art Museum, Tokyo (2001), Documenta X, Kassel (1997), Secession Wien (1996), Generali Foun- dation Vienna (1989), and the 42nd Biennale di Venezia (1986).

40 Martin Walde *1957 in Innsbruck, Austria, lives and works in Vienna Ball Turned Bag – Working Vision, 2006/2019 basketballs of different companies and producers, ropes, straps, snap karabiners, Ed. 50 Courtesy of Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna

Silent auction, lot 22: € 450.- Silent auction, lot 23: € 450.- Silent auction, lot 24: € 450.-

41 Samia Ziadi works in the realms of fashion reading ‘Migrant’ on the oversized front sleeve design, photography, and video, focusing on and ‘Visa’ on the back. Red and yellow stripes the increasingly important development of ‘slow irregularly cover the surface, a black zipper on fashion’, taking a stance against the exploitation the front marking the centre of the asymmetrical horrors of the fast fashion industry, especially burqa, going all the way up, over the mouth. The its cruel working conditions for women. Her head is crowned with a transparent hijab, as personal background inspires her garments and seen in her previous works, and the model wears their representation in performances as well as only one white sock and a pair of blue slippers. photo and video documentations. Having Alge- Over the left breast, the left part of the torso and rian roots and living in Marseille, she is inter- arm fully exposed, the artist placed an oversized ested in exploring questions of identity, religion, nazar, an eye-shaped amulet believed to protect and socio-political issues. The staged designs or against the ‘evil eye’ in most Middle Eastern settings she creates become agents of visibility countries. and are meant to function as flags symbolizing poor, underrepresented or suppressed social The concept of Samia Ziadi’s fashion is as groups. Her works seem avant-garde within the powerful as it is clear. Socio-political and femi- framework she adopts: hijabs become transpar- nist, she draws inspiration from Maghrebian ent, the colours are bride and loud, the models traditions and customs and puts them against are women of colour and often collaged into Western beliefs and projections. For the stag- images of urban areas. ing of the garment in performances – which are also photographed, sometimes with the Samia Ziadi studied graphic design and typog- model collaged into certain situations – she raphy in Marseille and began her career as a uses specific sites as backdrops to reinforce decorator and painter for various film and TV her message. Marseille, a true melting pot in sets before turning to fashion. Self-taught, she France, is her preferred setting. For example, merges conscious fashion production with art, Le Prophète (a bus stop at a beach of the same mainly through photography, graphic design, name) functions as a backdrop to speak of the and video. She has had a series of group exhi- religious dimensions within Ziadi’s work. A bitions curated by Galerie Number 8, by whom volleyball net at another beach – people playing she is also represented. Her work was shown and enjoying themselves in the background, during AKAA – Also Known As Africa art and marking a lucid and subtle border between design fair in Paris (2017), Les Rencontres De model and viewer – becomes a symbol of La Photographie d’Arles (2019/2018/2017), as female oppression, cultural and political exclu- a performance at Rencontres Anti_Fashion, sion, and the restrictive migration policies of our Marseille (2018) and at Fondazione Benetton’s times. Samia Ziadi depicts notions of nomadic, Gallerie Delle Prigioni (Tréviso) (2018). Most migrant life, collective memory, and political recently, Samia presented her first ‘capsule’ and religious agendas within her site-specific collection during Paris Fashion Week Couture in settings, challenging the conventions, prej- June, 2019. ‬ udices, and visual norms of a space and its A burqa stripped of its function (to cover a beau- history, telling stories of identity with her fash- tiful young female body in public areas) trans- ion. (AK) formed into a slow-fashion statement: Samia Ziadi’s Yallah dress consists of a white cloth printed with Arabic and English words, the latter

42 Samia Ziadi *born in Colmar, France, lives and works in Marseille She Can’t Be Seen, 2017 photograph, 66 × 50 cm Stop, 2017 photograph, 66 × 50 cm Courtesy of the artist & Galerie Number 8, Brussels

Silent auction, lot 29: Silent auction, lot 30: € 1.000.- € 1.000.-

43 In the work of Sylvia Eckermann, long-term While European culture may be dominated by formal and media discourses lead to critical a tradition of imposition and submission and a reflections about the present. Her installations hierarchical subject-object pattern – the ‘other’ can be described as spatial and medial enact- that is to be distinguished from the self – the ments of information in binary and physical Japanese tradition, for example, perceives the surroundings that structure not only individual space between people and between people and but also political and economic interests. Her art the world as their core identity and existential investigates the conflicts between discourse and origin. Eckermann activates this intermediate aesthetic practice, between analogue and digi- space through her integrative approach. Not tal, between solitary artistic work and creative only the origin of the artistic work but also the group processes. process of being confronted with the videos has a unifying impact when a large number Eckermann is regarded as a pioneer of Game of people feel spoken to in their native tongue Art, in which computer games have been modi- and begin to reflect upon the multiple levels of fied into artistic formats, since the end of the meaning of the title. 1990s. Since 2012, she has also created sculp- Cartography of the Intangible engages with tural works that interweave virtual and physical the indeterminate, though not by tracing the space. She has been a member of the group calculus of hypothetical classifications. Rather, it of artists Gangart (1987-89), fuchs-eckermann can be described as a display of contemporary (1989–2004) and the Technopolitics Research experiences and biographies. Instead of profes- Group since 2011. In 2017 and 2018, Ecker- sional achievements, however, the work follows mann, together with Gerald Nestler, developed the uncharted maps of contingent flows and the artistic series ‘The Future of Demonstration’, virtual potentials across which we steer in the which addressed new artistic formats and prac- course of our lives and where we decide upon tices. She has been awarded the Media Art Prize the undecidable. (FL) of the City of Vienna (2014) and the Austrian Art Prize for Media Art (2018) for her complete With thanks to: artistic oeuvre. Fawzia Al-Rawi, Irini Athanassakis, Dušan Barok, Leena & Andrew Bentely, Louise Deininger, During the preparation of this exhibition, Sylvia Selma Doborac, Andreas Fogarasi, Hanneke Eckermann investigated its title, had it trans- Hejden, Anna Karina Hofbauer, Anna Jermolewa, lated into the world’s thirty most widely spoken Silvia Jura, Marian Kaiser, Sabine Kienzer, Haruna languages and integrated the results of this Kleinlercher, Weiping Lin, Zahra & Payam lotfi, investigation into a gaudily coloured, abstract Kristian Lukic´ , Celia Mara, Christ Mukenge computer animation. In a collaborative and & Lydia Schellhammer, Irina Nikolaenko, highly discursive process involving artists, writ- Sharon Nuni, Oanh Pham-Phu, Stephan Popp, ers, philosophers, and friends from Austria and Doron Rabinovici, Jongcheon Shin, Martina abroad, she reflected upon the various levels of Simkovicova, Michael Snyman, Iv Toshain, Marek interpretation and meaning of – and the diffi- Tuszynski, Pablo Volenski and Li Zenhua. culties in translating – ‘The Other is Oneself’. A process that started in Vienna spread through- out the artist’s dense international network before manifesting itself in the exhibition in the heart of downtown Vienna. In this process, the potential for discussion and frictional losses and shifts in the signifier are determined by not only linguistic but also cultural and situational differences.

44 Sylvia Eckermann *1962 in Vienna, Austria, lives and works in Vienna Cartography of the Intangible, 2013 Digital pigment print, 124.46 × 101.6 cm, Edition 2/5 Courtesy of the artist

Silent auction, lot 31: € 2.500.- 45 Slavs and Tatars is an art collective founded (2014), Venice Biennale (2013), and New in 2006 and based in Berlin. They describe Museum Triennial, New York (2012), among themselves as ‘a faction of polemics and inti- many others. Renowned private and institutional macies devoted to an area east of the former international collections hold their works. Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia’. The collective’s practice is Love Me, Love Me Not: Changed Names is the based on three activities: exhibitions, books, and title of a series of works documenting the name lecture performances. Originally meant to be an changes of a selection of 150 cities in Eurasia, informal book club, Slavs and Tatars became a the exact part of the world Slavs and Tatars force in the art world through their cosmopolitan pronounced as their remit. Identifying a lineage approach including popular culture as well as of names attributed to consistent locations, thus oral histories, myths and traditions, orientalism, unmasking gruesome histories, forgotten or spirituality and language, while focusing on the neglected heritage, and complex identities, the geopolitical area of Eurasia. Their installations, collective unveils a heterogeneous, multilingual publications and lectures interact within a cycle though sometimes confusingly preposterous of work, always starting from sophisticated, array of national struggle. As common with preliminary research sprawling from alphabet their work, Love Me, Love Me Not was first politics through transliteration to medieval advice conceived as a publication compiling all name literature to the metaphysics of protest. ‘Meta- changes, before becoming delicate mirror physical splits’, as Slavs and Tatars refer to them, works, the country and the previous and current are a key concept within their all-encompassing names of the city painted on them in all relevant practice, i.e. an invitation to their audience who languages i.e. of the conquerors – religious or may focus on subsuming all diametrical ambi- cultural groups throughout history. In the case of ances and ideas that are developed from histor- Dziaržynsk, a Belarusian city in the Minsk region ical, religious, cultural, and political parameters. with a population of approximately 25,000 Questioning assumptions and understandings inhabitants, we may read its previous name, of identity, language, iconographies, and ideol- ‘Kojdanava’, on the glass, translated below ogies, often humorous and sensational objects into Russian and Yiddish. The town has a rich evolve, while the collective makes way for history of being home to a Jewish community unforeseen possibilities within the contemporary from which a new Hasidic Jewish dynasty art discourse. evolved in the 19th century. In 1932, Kojdanava was granted the status of a city and shortly Slavs and Tatars’ works have been exhibited after its name was changed to ‘Dziaržynsk’ by across the globe, most recent solo shows communist authorities, in honor of the Bolshe- include Kunstverein Hannover, Albertinum, vik revolutionary and chief of the Soviet secret Dresden, Kulturhuset Stockholm, Westfälischer police (Cheka), Felix Dzerzhinsky, who was born Kunstverein, Münster (2018), Pejman Foun- nearby. Slavs and Tatars translate ‘Dziaržynsk’ dation, Teheran (2017), Ujazdowski Castle only into Russian, calmly but firmly commenting Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Villa on the communist hegemony and the fate of Empain, Brussels (2016), Kunsthal Aarhus, millions of minorities – after WWII mostly Jews Trondheim Kunstmuseum, (2015), Kunsthalle – under the Great Purge, who tragically enough Zürich, GfZK, Leipzig, Dallas Museum of Art not only lost their lives, but with them great (2014), Museum of Modern Art, New York, and parts of their cultural heritage and voice. (AK) Secession, Vienna (2012). They were part of the 2nd OFF-Biennale, Budapest, 32nd Biennial of Graphic Arts, mglc, Ljubljana (2017), 4th and 2nd Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Ekaterinburg (2016/2012), Berlin Biennale, Manifesta 10, St. Petersburg, Instanbul Modern

46 Slavs and Tatars *art collective founded in 2006, based in Berlin LOVE ME LOVE ME NOT (Belarus-Dziaržynsk), 2018 acrylic paint on mirror reverse, aluminum frame, 85 × 60 cm Courtesy of Slavs and Tatars

Silent auction, lot 32: € 5.500.-

47 Nisirine Boukhari is a conceptual artist, devel- Nisrine Boukhari co-founded AllArtNow in 2005, oping her art-based research projects out of the first independent contemporary art orga- concepts relating to psychogeography and nization in Damascus, which was the basis for the analysis of the impact of space on human the foundation of the international festival for behaviour and emotions. Since 2012 her focus contemporary art Living Spaces (2009/2010), has been on researching a form of mental as well as Studio1, Informal Contemporary Art diversity through the intersection between art, School in Damascus (2011/2012). AllArtNow psychology and neuroscience, which she refers space was transformed into a temporary refu- to as ‘Wanderism’. Within it, Nisrine Boukhari gee shelter, after a severe aggravation of the alters methods of psychogeographical theories, war in Syria in 2012. Its exhibition program pointing out the wanderer and their representa- became nomadic since, until AllArtNow Lab tion as potential game-changers of a new world opened in Stockholm earlier this year. yet to be. The act of wandering, of being lost and changing locations, willingly or unwillingly, Blind Breathing is a series of work that started in speaks of a rhizomatic, therefore non-hierarchi- 2018, six years after Breathing Maps, in which cal, order that relates to recurring global and Nisrine Boukhari developed her psyche-draw- systemic problems of identity, borders, safe ing practice into the direction of respiratory art, spaces and human rights. Questions of Wander- referring to philosophical and psychological ism, belonging, and emotional coping are rooted thoughts on the system and meaning of breath- in her works, defining the core of what the artist ing, air, and their effects on body and mind. calls the ‘State of Mind’, a foremost mental, as Related to her previous research and to trauma well as physical, state that evolves from being a as well as PTSD, breathing is treated as a wanderer. Nisrine Boukhari’s mixed-media instal- thoughtful, philosophical and therapeutic prac- lations are designed to be perceptual and partic- tice – as opposed to its mechanical system of ipatory experiences, engaging body and mind, survival – in these drawings. The artist creates but language also plays an essential role. Since poetic, abstract works based on the state of leaving her hometown of Damascus in 2012, she mind she is in at the moment of creation, while has composed numerous text fragments, posi- being in a completely dark room with closed tioning herself to her former base and creating eyes in order to avoid any conscious pattern or the matrix for her practice. figure the mind may see or produce when the eyes are open. Every line becomes a gesture of Nisrine Boukhari studied sculpture at the Faculty the psyche, the process of conscious breath- of Fine Arts, Damascus University, and holds ing itself cultivating a path towards grasping a M.A. in Social Design from the University of the state of mind, thus having a calming effect Applied Arts Vienna. Her art-based research and reducing anxiety. The delicate drawings, led her to participate in numerous international which transport lightness and follow the residencies, most recently at Iaspis, Sweden, motion of breath, its intensity and lack of, may Serlachius Museum, Finland, Trapholt Museum be witnessed as a quiet symbol for overcom- for Moderne Kunst, Kolding, MAWA art resi- ing trauma or at least soothing a traumatized dency Winnipeg, Canada, Nordic Artists Centre memory, elevating from a chaotic and burden- Dale, Norway and Art Omi, New York. Her ing state of depression, angst, uncertainty and work was exhibited internationally, recently strain into self-improving relaxation and peace. at the Museum of Modern and Contempo- (AK) rary Art, Rijeka, Croatia, Bildmuseet Umeå, Sweden, Trapholt Museum for Moderne Kunst, Kolding, Denmark, Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg, Sweden, The National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) Lisbon, Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde, Denmark, Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam, Casoria Contemporary Art Museum (CAM), Italy.

48 Nisrine Boukhari *1980 in Damascus, lives and works in Vienna and Stockholm Blind Breathing, (Lament for Adam, Things will be Forgotten, A Light in the Cave, When there was) on-going since 2018 ink on paper, each A3 size Courtesy of the artist

Silent auction, lot 33: Silent auction, lot 34: € 800.- € 800.-

Silent auction, lot 35: Silent auction, lot 36: € 800.- € 800.-

49 The work of artist, curator and publisher Bernhard Cella addresses contemporary forms Bernhard Cella developed this publication for of visual art that transform models of production ‘The Other is Oneself’ together with the artist and distribution. In 2007 he established the and project initiator Sébastien de Ganay. It is a ‘Salon für Kunstbuch’ in Vienna, an ‘organisa- hybrid of discursive philosophical work, exhibi- tional undertaking as artwork’, which combines tion catalogue, and literary reader, which brings his theoretical and research activities, and his together the diverse experiences and observa- work as a publisher, with a series of temporary tions of flight, expulsion, exile, and the creation performative settings, exhibitions and discussion and discovery of identity offered by researchers, formats. He built a full-scale model room – first theoreticians, poets, artists and filmmakers. in Mondscheingasse in Vienna (2007-2017) and Since time immemorial, such questions as to later in Belvedere 21 (2011-2019) – in which a what should be revealed, how and in what form, bookshop, archive, and location for exhibitions and under which circumstances, this revela- and discussions, are integrated into his own tion should occur, and to whom such contents studio as a form of living, transitive network should be directed – the question of who has space. The interaction between the publica- the power, access, and rights that determine tions, their relationship with the architecturally publication – have shaped our cultural debate. unique space created by Cella, and the audi- Cella and de Ganay have jointly developed a ence’s opportunity to react and interpret, merge processual and collaborative conceptual and together in a common, constantly changing, production method that challenges the classic transitive experiential space. The Salon für separation of roles and borders between author- Kunstbuch currently consists of around 22,000 ship and publication. available titles covering all artistic disciplines, including painting, graphic art, photography, For the setting of this exhibition, Bernhard Cella performance, concept art, architecture, sound, has designed a modular installation, which philosophy and artistic theory, and its combined draws on his interest in transitive spatial expe- role as a bookshop and as a place of exhibition, rience as it investigates places in terms of not open debate and inspiration is unique in Europe. only their architecture and function but also their historical, social and political identity. On his Bernhard Cella studied at the Academy of most recent trip to Lebanon he photographed Fine Arts in Vienna, the University for Arts and building sites in Beirut, without seeking permis- Industrial Design in Linz and the Hochschule für sion, as a means of recording the working bildende Künste Hamburg. He led the research conditions of illegally employed Syrian labour- project ‘NO ISBN’ at the Center of Art and ers. By acting illegally himself and transferring Knowledge Transfer at the University of Applied the resulting photographs onto paper with the Arts Vienna, which investigates international help of graphite dust and then into the exhibi- artistic publications that are self-published and tion space, he not only highlights the fragility hence have no ISBN. Since 2015 he has been of inclusion and exclusion in society and the continuing this research independently through construction of our own identities but also offers his project ‘Behind No-ISBN’ and the Research us a direct experience of the social interaction Institute for Arts and Technology, of which he triggered by the constant crossing and redraw- is a co-founder. His multimedia works have ing of borders. most recently exhibited at the Beirut Art Center The manquants interpret objects that are miss- (2019), the Museum Santa Monica, Barcelona ing or have been stolen from Bernhard Cella’s (2015), the Casa Bosques, Guadalajara, Mexico, Salon für Kunstbuch. By filling the voids in his the Kiesler Stiftung, Vienna, Hamburger Kunst- collection with a series of Jacquard tapestries verein (2014), MAK Wien (2013), Künstlerhaus he chronicles the perseverance without which Wien, 21er Haus, Vienna (2011) and the Salz- his laboratory would no longer exist in such a burger Kunstverein (2006). complete form. (FL)

50 Bernhard Cella *1969 in Salzburg, lives and works in Vienna and Trieste manquant Nº 14 (Community Art - The Politics of T r e s p a s s i n g ), 2014 Jacquard Tapestry, 40 × 30 cm Two Spreads, 2019 graphite, toner dust, folded paper, 30 × 21 cm Courtesy of the artist

Silent auction, lot 38: € 2.000.- Silent auction, lot 37: € 1.800.-

51 The starting point of Ramesch Daha’s artistic work is often the story of her Iranian-Austrian For this exhibition, Ramesch Daha developed family, which fled the Islamic Revolution, and an uninhabited lakeside scene free of perspec- associated intensifying fundamentalism, in 1978 tive or borders, whose high, luminous horizon to Vienna, her mother’s native city. Basing her is broken by a formation of islands reflected in work on extensive historical research, in private the water, cowering below a cloud-filled sky. and public archives, Daha combines biograph- Her reduced painting, which has been carefully ical aspects with collective memories and created as a series of layers of colour, is domi- general historical descriptions in complex, multi- nated by an opaque basic tone that enables the media installations featuring painting, collage, water, land and sky to appear below the appar- video, drawing, archive material and everyday ently smooth surface in all their abstract beauty objects. Her research is often accompanied but, also, complete impenetrability. The point by long journeys and meticulously kept diaries of reference in the work is the opposite bank, while the genesis of the work is documented which is easy to reach and yet has receded in complex publications. However, she is less to the infinite distance of the horizon. Even if concerned with strict narrative or any attempt Daha’s landscapes represent real, experienced at a chronologically complete, historiographical landscapes, they are also expressions of the representation of historical events. Rather, this psychological landscape of the artist in that, for conscious juxtaposition of artistic media and all their obvious beauty, they combine feelings content creates a subjective collage of interpre- of unease and alienation, longing and hope. (FL) tation and meaning that should sharpen our crit- ical awareness of the fact that history cannot be defined by mono-dimensional, objective criteria.

Ramesch Daha’s work has been shown in numerous international solo and group exhi- bitions in such locations as Index, Stockholm, Lazaar Foundation, Tunis (2019), Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, Galerie Nagel/Draxler, Berlin (2018), NSK State Pavilion – 57th Venice Biennale, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York (2017), Secession, Vienna (2015), Kunstpavillon München, 21er Haus, Vienna (2014). It also features in private and public collections includ- ing the Albertina, Vienna, Joanneum, Graz, the Kupferstichkabinett and the collection of the City of Vienna.

52 Ramesch Daha *1971 in Tehran, Iran, lives and works in Vienna Landscapes, 2019 acrylic on canvas, each 80 × 120 cm total 80 × 360 cm Courtesy of the artist

Silent auction, lot 41: € 19.000.-

53 In her photographic and film portraits, sculp- tures, installations, and temporary political For The Other is Oneself, Iris Andraschek actions in the public realm, Iris Andraschek imported hundreds of kilos of blocks of soap addresses structures and rituals in systems from Aleppo, with which she built a strip of of social classification and the mutual depen- wall that is progressively dismantled due to the dency and exchange between the private and soap’s sale during the exhibition. When the flow public, everyday life and orchestration. She is of refugees was at its peak in early 2016, the concerned with personal, culturally influenced, artist travelled from Istanbul to Gaziantep on political and socio-economic borders and the Syria–Turkey border, where she met soap people’s attempts to counter the dualistic and makers who had fled Aleppo and were trying rigid understanding of such borders through the to continue their thousand-year-old tradition permanent updating of seemingly normative of manually producing laurel oil soap in hastily rules and development of alternative lifestyles. assembled workshops. Turkey also meets the She often portrays people who have liberated conditions for such production because the themselves from normal ways of imagining and drawing of borders between nation states only thinking and reject externally imposed systems interrupted the connections between the two by basing their life on a conscious co-existence countries, which have a similar vegetation and with nature. Far removed from clichés and idylls, shared ancient history, manufacturing tradi- Andraschek investigates interactional human tions, and ethnic diversity. Each piece of soap processes and relationship patterns and the is a unique object, cut into a block by hand borders between reality and fiction in images and given a manufacturer’s stamp, part of the constructed by the media. cultural heritage of Aleppo. These are symbols of a piece of recorded cultural history and how it Iris Andraschek studied at the Academy of Fine can be passed on, unhindered by political, mili- Arts Vienna before taking further courses in tary, or digital limitations. (FL) fresco painting at the Scuola degli arti ornamen- tali in Rome and Bolzano. She has worked in Istanbul (2015), Woodside, CA (2012), New York (2010) and Durham, Ontario (2002). Permanent installations in the public realm can be seen in Krems (together with Hubert Lobnig), Loosdorf, Lower Austria, and Vienna. Her exhibitions in Austria and abroad include, most recently, Büyük Valide Han and the Austrian Cultural Forum, Istanbul, Landesgalerie Krems (2019) and Kunsthaus Wien (2018).

54 Iris Andraschek *1963 in Horn, Austria, lives and works in Vienna and Mödring SAPUN GHAR, 2019 laurel oil soaps, dimension variable Courtesy of Galerie Raum mit Licht, Vienna

Each € 25,- Will be sold in the exhibition

55 Wir danken allen KünstlerInnen und SammlerInnen für ihre Unterstützung