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Universalmuseum Joanneum [email protected] Mariahilferstraße 4, 8020 Graz, Austria Telephone +43-316/8017-9211 www.museum-joanneum.at media.art.collecting Perspectives of a collection

Kunsthaus Graz, Space 02, Lendkai 1, 8020 Graz Opening: 15.06.2012, 7pm Duration: 15.06.2012-02.06.2013 Curators: Günther Holler-Schuster, Katrin Bucher Trantow, Katia Huemer Information: +43-316/8017-9200, [email protected]

How does media art define itself in the course of an almost 40-year-old collection? What changes, what comes to form a whole, what was overlooked and where does it go from here? Audiovisual Messages – the 1973 edition of the trigon Biennal – placed a major emphasis on media art, putting local artists in direct relation to international developments. This exhibition marked the beginning of a dynamic that made Graz appear a special place for media art. With influential works by artists such as Nam June Paik, Keith Sonnier, Gottfried Bechtold, Trisha Brown and Bruce Naumann, what emerges is a web of topics that have captivated media art from the beginning, including space-time penetration, media discussion and -reflection or the painterly/musical qualities of new media – topics showing a clearly traceable development in relation to more recent work.

Thus the exhibition media art collecting deals with collecting activities at the Neue Galerie Graz in the area of media art, the essence of which becomes evident in the spectrum of exhibitions held over the past 40 years. Building on the 2009 exhibition Rewind/Fast Forward at the Neue Galerie Graz and its first-ever survey of the institution’s video art collection, the current exhibition media.art.collecting. Perspectives of a Collection will offer a broader view of other parts of the collection such as installation and photography, but also of what is missing and desired. Changing every eight weeks, the exhibition will manifest as an evolving structure of relationships and historical as well as current desiderata, which will be presented in two highlighted areas. Putting Allspace in a Notshall is a collaborative work by Hartmut Skerbisch and Manfred Wolff-Plottegg. Created as a much-discussed, critical competition entry for the trigon69, it resisted and protested the idea of an “architecure of freedom”. It forms the beginning of a series of references that were important for media art on both a national and international level. Here, the work – which even in its concept reflects upon both architectural space and the space of media, and manifests as a fluid whole that flows into the audience – can be entered into for the first time. As a running architecture that reveals its own construction and recognizes people as the most important recipients and agents, it holds ties to the original thoughts behind the Kunsthaus. Page 2

Artist Caroline Heider (born 1978 in Munich, lives in Vienna) will present her installation Perfect Drawing, 2012 as the first room dedicated to emerging positions in media art. The artist, who comes from film and photography and became known for her fragmented, folded images, works across various media. Heider begins by first deliberately creating a room that takes the infiltration of the media and the process of production as its actual subject matter, thereby forming and showing, in a certain sense, a continuation and contemporary handling of the topic put forth by Plottegg & Skerbisch.

At a time when media pervades all aspects of everyday life, the exhibition will keep its focus trained on the question of the changing notion of media art as it relates to the collection’s own structure – both in retrospect and with regard to its own outlook for the future. In doing so, it aims to provide a comprehensive look of what has previously been neglected, while at the same time pointing to expansion opportunities as they become evident with regards to the historical situation of new media in Graz.

With works by Vito Acconci, Thomas Baumann/Josef Dabernig/Martin Kaltner, Jordan Crandall, Sonja Gangl, Caroline Heider, Richard Kriesche, Mike Kelley/Paul McCarthy, Muntean/Rosenblum, Nam June Paik, Manfred Plotegg/Hartmut Skerbisch, Pipilotti Rist, Susanne Schuda, Peter Weibel a. o.