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… von Brot, Wein, Autos, Sicherheit und Frieden … of bread, wine, cars, security and peace … o kruhu, vinu, autima, sigurnosti i miru … ekmek, • marwa arsanios • zach blas • sonia boyce • banu cennetoğlu • alejandro cesarco • saddie choua • phil collins • alice creischer • adji dieye … of bread, • ines doujak • melanie ebenhoch wine, • tim etchells cars, • kevin jerome everson • forensic architecture security • giorgi gago gagoshidze, hito steyerl & miloš trakilović and • monika grabuschnigg • vlatka horvat e peac • anne marie jehle • gülsün karamustafa • jessika khazrik for the society of false witnesses • victoria lomasko • hana miletić & globe aroma • marina naprushkina • tuan andrew nguyen • wendelien van oldenborgh • sylvia palacios whitman • dan perjovschi • pirate care • hc playner • oliver ressler • school of contradiction • selma selman • andreas siekmann • daniel spoerri • mladen stilinović • marlene streeruwitz • milica tomić kunsthalle wien 01 ... of bread, wine, cars security and peace is the first exhibi- The curatorial tion we have curated since taking over the directorship of collective What, signals of things kunsthalle wien.01 This international group show is intended How & for Whom / WHW started its to give visitors an idea of our artistic and political interests, to come work in Zagreb and to present some of the many artists who have inspired on an exhibition our collective work over the years. It also serves as an entitled What, introduction to the general orientation of the program How & for Whom, dedicated to the that we will develop over the first year of our directorship. 152nd anniversary of the Communist The exhibition is shaped by the shift that our collective Manifesto (2000). has made in moving from Zagreb to Vienna after twenty The members of the collective Ivet Ćurlin, years of working together from our home city. That move Ana Dević, Nataša inevitably asks us to reflect on the differences between here Ilić, and Sabina and there. The political complexity in Austria is in some Sabolović continue ways familiar, yet there exists a sense of responsibility and to work together on WHW’s programs in care towards common issues and public concerns here that Zagreb. we miss back home. This sense of shared responsibility is something that we feel is especially present in Vienna, a 02 The new legislation, city that is inseparable from the idea of “the good life” and passed by the “well-being.” Having moved here, we also see the ruptures votes of ÖVP, FPÖ, that have diminished these values over the last thirty years and NEOS in 2018 (recently represented, for instance, by the legalization of is known as the 02 “12-hours workday” the 12-hour workday). Through the title and subject of or “60-hours week” the exhibition, we therefore want to indicate how precious (12-Stunden-Tag; these values are for society, culture and everyday life today, 60-Stunden-Woche). and to envision a future that refuses to be complicit with 03 the conditions that created the present. Bilal Khbeiz, Globalization and The title quotes Bilal Khbeiz, a Lebanese author who mused the Manufacture of Transient Events, over some of the things that made the difference between Beirut: Ashkal Alwan, the dreams of people in the Global South and the West.03 2003. For Khbeiz, the very list – bread, wine, cars, security and peace – defined an idea of “the good life” that was unat- tainable for much of the world. Almost two decades later, it seems that these basics begin to escape more and more people living in places where they were once taken for granted: climate change puts the continuation of life on earth under question; ecological destruction gathers pace; faith in the benevolence of capitalism was broken Mladen Stilinović, For Marie Antoinette ’68, 2008, Operation City, Zagreb, by the 2008 crash, and its horizon of slow global improve- PHOTO: Boris Cvjetanović, Courtesy of Branka Stipančić, Zagreb ment and trickle-down benefits is steadily evaporating. 3 2 As a start, one might conclude that each element in the 04 05 The exhibition had an early start. A series of events at title has turned sour. Food is scarce and industrial agri- Laurent Berlant, More information on Kasino am Schwarzenbergplatz05 produced in coopera- Cruel Optimism, the participants and culture has had terrible effects on the environment. For tion with Burgtheater introduced some of the issues at Durham, N.C.: Duke events within this those who still have enough, bread and wine are often University Press, 2011. collaboration can be stake in the show, and gave our local audience a chance the cause of guilt and shame. The obsessive drive for found on the pages to find their own perspective on our curatorial proposi- self-optimization and reckless consumption turn the most 16–25. tions. The exhibition itself takes place in all the venues and basic human desires into marketized products. Cars are spaces of kunsthalle wien. It wants to open up the house climate destroyers and trophy possessions that damage metaphorically and literally, pushing the threshold of the the whole environment and block up our urban spaces. exhibition towards the public space, while not being afraid Security has been militarized into a “surveillance state,” of working with all of the contradictions this might reveal. in which a dystopian, posthuman landscape of predictive In collaboration with studio das weisse haus we have policing, data analysis, and algorithmic management started a residency program for artists to stay in Vienna looms over everything. Finally, the best form of peace during the exhibition and to engage with the educational on offer is a constant low-level war, while the perceived department of kunsthalle wien to discuss, mediate, and threat of ever further escalation drives democratic politics elaborate on their work. The exhibition includes the Space toward populist leaders around the globe. To put it simply: of Questions, an educational space that will host a series the idea of a “good life” is a fantasy persisting as “cruel of events and serve as a simple invitation to visitors to read, attachment” to a world that is no more.04 think, leave comments and rest during the visit. Nevertheless, this exhibition is not a counsel of despair or ... of bread, wine, cars, security and peace opens on the a dark critique of all that is wrong with the world. Instead, March 8, International Women’s Day, to emphasize its the artists and artworks on show seek to rethink the feminist perspective. Social and ecological reproduction, “good life,” both as a collective and individual experience. and a serious reckoning with the ways in which the work It represents a collaborative effort to understand today’s of serving others has been shaped by gender and race are political world, as well as to reflect, motivate, and assist at the heart of its vision of the future. It celebrates sustain- the struggles to change it. Presenting works by artists of ing and improving human life, as well as the lives of other different generations and times in dialogue, the artists species who share our world. It proposes a daily life that is suggest real alternatives to the perpetuation of the ruin- less arduous and more pleasurable, with an abundance of ous economic violence and monstrous social forms we see communal luxury and collective leisure, where the “good around us. Critical, constructive and imaginative voices act life” is ecologically supportive and oriented toward the as faint signals of things to come or those that are already flourishing of all. ● emerging into life. The exhibition posits artistic subjectivity as a place where one can imagine abandoning the fatal what, how & for whom / whw dialectic of modern capitalism – and think beyond it. There ( ivet ćurlin • nataša ilić • sabina sabolović ) are already many moral, ecological, and scientific argu- ments for organizing our economies more fairly and they are becoming increasingly realizable. Degrowth, as one example, is not only a principled stand for an ecologically sustainable world economy governed by human needs. It also looks for tangible ways to celebrate the richness of Adji Dieye, Maggic Cube, the planet and all of its life forms. 2019 Vienna • February 2020 5 4 A Palestinian cannot imagine the future without The immigration laws in Western nations are a fair political agreement, as a Lebanese cannot similar to academic entrance exams. If passed, one imagine his future without an end to unjust can spend a life living as humans do – with rights taxes, the arbitrary diplomacies of confessional like those given to Westerners. With globalization, politics, and a sovereignty wrested out of the such an entrance can at times be gained while still contiguity with surrounding neighbors. Let in one’s own place. We can apply as individuals to us also say, for the sake of clarification, that a this open university and spend our time earning Tanzanian woman who walks for more than one degree after another. By learning to savor thirty kilometers every day in search for wood to coffee at Starbucks, and by hiding bad habits such cook her family’s meal, dreams of a future with as smoking, skillfulness in using the Internet will gas stoves and a constant supply of electricity. The take us all the way to financial speculation in a dreams of the Third World are visible, tangible, virtual economy. felt and lived. So what about the dreams of the Americans? Most probably, and if the following In all that, we are not citizens, humans, or even historical comparison is allowed, there is a domesticated animals. We will only manage classist segregation of dreams. Science fiction is a to become intelligent creatures. And that, we specialty of developed societies, while we in the are told, should be more than enough. We have Third World are left to dream of bread, wine, cars, no choice but to strain and struggle at being security and peace.

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