Kunstraum Niederoesterreich presents its annual exhibition program 2023.
Sensing the Heat
The recent crises are arguably just the beginning—harbingers of a far-reaching tragedy. Melting glaciers, collapsing ecosystems, migration fueled by drought and floods—the world is growing hotter, physically hotter, and the planetary boundaries of our power to respond are becoming more obvious.
We seek occurrences that point beyond the terrible status quo in our annual program 2023 Sensing the Heat. Where can we already discern the seeds of new terrestrial cohabitation modes? What additional routes of care for our financial and spiritual well-being are there? And what function does art have in these investigations?
Sensing the Heat begins with the group show Matrix Bodies, developed by Frederike Sperling, the new artistic director of Kunstraum Niederoesterreich. We delve into the secret realm of the virosphere in Matrix Bodies to explore the numerous entanglements between body and environment. The summer is dedicated to the digital’s worldmaking potentials: the group Omsk Social Club examines the phenomenon of gamification in their immersive project T(())mb. Our third show is a contemplation on pleasure and sensuality as therapeutic strategies: In Quiet Storm Blowin’ So Gweha presents a multimodal environment that serves as a stage, resting zone, meeting spot, and learning space all at the same time.
Complementing the exhibitions, the Kunstraum offers a multifaceted and free-of-charge art mediation program.
Furthermore: As each year Kunstraum Niederoesterreich will award the annual H13 Lower Austria Prize for Performance, the only prize for performance art in Austria. For the first time, the prize endowed with 5000 EUR will be awarded in partnership with an international institution, the Bergen Kunsthall in Norway. The selected performance premieres at the Kunstraum on September 1, 2023 and is accompanied by an exhibition. For more information please click here.
Matrix Bodies
March 24–May 13, 2023
Opening: March 23, 2023
Viruses’ devastating potential was tragically demonstrated during the epidemic, but life on Earth would be impossible without these living organisms. Viruses play an important role in many eco systems. Matrix Bodies is a group exhibition that uses the virosphere as a starting point for a speculative examination of the varied, apparent and invisible interdependencies between humans and nature. Matrix Bodies also investigates what other—transcorporeal—relationships between humans and nonhuman beings might look like.
Artists: Eglė Budvytytė, Caterina Gobbi, Nona Inescu, Josèfa Ntjam, Sophie Utikal and more
Curator: Frederike Sperling
T(())mb
June 7, 2023–July 29, 2023
Opening: June 6, 2023
The world(s) emerge through the use of words, namely through a continual flow of “language-games,” as Ludwig Wittgenstein described it. Every day, people use social media to see how language, worldmaking, and gaming intertwine. Cancellation, platforming, in-feed censorship—all of these approaches adhere to gaming ideas while becoming severe reality. Omsk Social Club responds to this predicament with T(())mb, an immersive and participatory installation that serves as a “linguistic crash-course survival kit.” Visitors to T(())mb are invited to participate in a game, solve riddles, and critically unmask gamification practices.
Artists and curators: Omsk Social Club
Quiet Storm Blowin’
October 6, 2023–December 2, 2023
Opening: October 5, 2023
The healing of the racialized body is closely tied to the healing of the Earth. So Gweha, an artist, DJ, poet, and activist, thinks and works from this premise, articulating ways for inscribing queer eroticism and pleasure as means for entering the “healing body.” Quiet Storm Blowin’, their first solo exhibition in Austria, develops as an archipelagic ecosystem designed to accommodate the rhythms and needs of this restorative mode. The show is transformed throughout its run by a public program hosted by the artist.
Artist: Soñ Gweha
Curator: Frederike Sperling
Kunstraum Niederoesterreich
Herrengasse 13
1010 Vienna
Austria
Hours: Tuesday–Friday 11am–7pm,
Saturday 11am–3pm
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