Anthropocene: WHAT REMAINS?

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI 2016

What remains?

kunstGarten & Street Gallery are showing works by these artists: Cosima von Bonin, Karl Grünling, Maryam Mohammadi, Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed, Walter Köstenbauer, Keyvan Paydar, Eva Ursprung

Curated by DP.in Irmi Horn.

Introductory words: art historian Dr.in Edith Risse.

The Birth of Man – Art’s Birthday: Art is alive, and to keep it alive, it is celebrated worldwide on 17 January. Art’s Birthday is a decentralised festival that everyone can join and participate in.

Art’s Birthday (French: anniversaire de l’art) is the birthday of art arbitrarily set in 1963 by the French Fluxus artist Robert Filliou (1926-1987) on the day of his own birth, 17 January, and 1,000,000 years before 1963 (998,038 BC). Founded as a day of action to pay homage to art and acknowledge the presence of art in daily life, it is now celebrated annually and resonates worldwide.

The principle of the action is to offer gifts to art in the sense of Filliou’s “création permanente” (permanent creation) via an “Eternal Network” by post, fax, e-mail, internet and radio as well as in every other conceivable way. The only rule is that everyone should send, receive and exchange gifts.

kunstGarten aims to make these art gifts available to people in the garden during opening hours and in the Street Gallery around the clock.

What do we want to say: Man, who has learned to express himself, to communicate, to preserve for descendants, has left behind many works, some of which represent art for us.
These include writings, pictures, monuments … which probably originally served the cohesion and life strategy of a group, a tribe, a country, later probably the rulers and the gods.

Which commandments and prohibitions created by humans, which were also conveyed through artistic expressions and representations, are socially and culturally relevant? Without scientifically sound knowledge that can be verified again and again, humanity has come up with a lot of bullshit besides some constructive approaches to living together – see human rights:
It always seems to be about appropriation of power, in the sense of possession and property. As a consequence, it is about exploitation and subjugation. The destruction of our planet is foreseeable.

Some old people and many young people are belligerent. Their aim in life is not to take and oppress. And if it is, then it is to be done carefully and responsibly.

The artists tread this path of challenge to the lax and the lame, the careless, the destructive and the oppressive.

They point out what threatens us: cheerfully, critically, putting their finger in the wound.
They also awaken and give courage.
They are ready to constantly participate in the creation of empathic togetherness.

Born in 1962 in Mombasa, Kenya, Cosima von Bonin lives and works in Cologne. In 2010, the Austrian Kunsthaus Bregenz presented “The Fatigue Empire”, a comprehensive solo exhibition of her then current works. Her subsequent touring exhibition, the “Lazy Susan Series”, was shown at Witte de With, Rotterdam (October 2010 to January 2011), Arnolfini, Bristol (February to April 2011), MAMCO, Geneva (June to September 2011) and Museum Ludwig, Cologne (July to October 2011).
In the USA, von Bonin celebrated her first major success in 2007 with her exhibition “Roger and Out” at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Further solo exhibitions were presented by the Kölnischer Kunstverein (2004), the Kunstverein Hamburg (2001), the Kunstverein Braunschweig (2000) and the Kunsthallte St. Gallen, Switzerland (1999), among others. In addition, von Bonin has participated in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Les Abbatoirs in Toulouse, France, as well as Documenta XII in Kassel and many others.
Her work is included in numerous prestigious collections around the world, including the Tate Britain in London, the Museum für Neue Kunst at the ZKM in Karlsruhe and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

In her works she mixes elements of formalism, abstraction and pop art and tries to find a balance between seriousness and humour, , weighted down with melancholy or effervescent with critical wit.

Cosima-von BONIN ohne Titel IV – FarbSerigraphie aus 1997

Karl Grünling
*1964 Steyr (1910 Paris)
Lives in Graz, Vienna and Frauendorf an der Schmida;
1952 Assistant year(Informal work), Zurich
1970-1972 Düsseldorf (RaumBeuys)
From 1972 FIU- Free international University for interdisciplinary research
From 1986 Poems and graffiti (Graz area)
The Improviser (and the Mothers of Excess)
1989 FOND foundation
…numerous exhibitions, concerts and actions, e.g. : “TUGENDWÄCHTER ~ Mensch sein vor Kunst”, ” NOCH HEUTE KÖNNT I MICH ERSCHLAGEN”, ” FONDsamsagabendSCHAU”, “BLAU FÜHRT ZUM TOD”, “SEKUNDENAKTIONEN” etc;
at these galleries and institutions:
Forum Stadtpark, steirischer herbst, aUtOnOmE tRaNsPoRtE, Schaumbad Graz, FOND/AKTIVIST, GrazRenaissanceMuseum, remixxgalerie, K+K Hofgalerie.
WINDFÄNGER” Plastic bottles mounted on long bamboo poles and sprayed with acrylic rotate in the wind, gentle almost inaudible sounds drift into the city. No bird is scared away, no ant trampled, no person overlooked.

Karl Grünling WINDFÄNGER, 2021

Maren Hirt takes the fascinating diversity in nature, its language of form and creative power as the great source of inspiration for her work. Evolution, development, transformation and transience of all living things fascinate her strongly and flow into her artistic work. She creates the “setting” for her works from dreams, fictions and utopian fantasies.
Her works are very time-consuming, detailed and precise, lengthy repetitive and meditative steps require a lot of patience and concentration. In this process she finds formal decisions essential to the work, details are changed and new ideas are born. The work grows and changes as it is created and is always subject to her personal aesthetic demands.
Mag. Art Maren Katharina Hirt was born in 1984 in Scheifling / Austria.
This was followed by:
1999 – 2003 Attendance at the HTBLA Hallstatt / Technical School for Sculpture
2003 – 2005 Attendance at the Ortweinschule Graz / master class for ceramic design
2007 -2013 Studies at the University of Art Linz Sculpture / Transmedial Space
2013 Successful completion of studies
Various internships and activities in exhibition sales / exhibition construction Lentos Linz / Nordico Linz
2008 – 2014 Course leader of the sculpture workshops / Murau Werktage
2014 – 2016 Birth of daughter / maternity leave

Since 01.09.2017 she is a self-employed visual artist living and working in Scheifling.

Karl Grünling, Windfänger – Wind Catcher 2020

Self-employment includes: Developing and creating her own artistic works, exhibition activities, artistic commissions, curatorial activities and running the gallery in the Hirt-Haus studio, holding sculpture workshops, project work at schools.

Maren Hirt ANTHROPOZÄN 2018, Sölker marble
Maryam Mohammadi is a freelance photographic artist (documentary and staged photography) and curator from Tehran focusing on gender and socialisation as well as migration. She repeatedly refers to women in different cultural, religious and social contexts. She has lived and worked in Graz since 2009.
In 2017, she completed her Ph.D. studies in photography and fine arts at the UJEP University in Ústí nad Labem (CZ); in addition to academic teaching and workshops, as well as numerous exhibitions and projects, she has already received several awards for her works, including the Art Promotion Prize of the City of Graz in 2013. For several years she has been on the board of XENOS – Association for the Promotion of Socio-Cultural Diversity.

Maren Hirt ANTHROPOZÄN 2018, Sölker Marmor

Maryam Mohammadi THE SPRING (from the series THE SEASONS), 2021
Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed (* 1993 in Klagenfurt am Wörthersee) is an Austrian visual artist. She obtained her diploma in June 2017 with Jan Svenungsson, Professor, Head of the Department of Grafik and Druckgrafikan at the Angewandte in Vienna. Her trademark is biros drawing of socio-cultural phenomena, but she also paints with other techniques such as felt-tip pen or ink. She belongs to the youngest generation of the Austrian art scene and her works deal with studies of human coexistence. With the help of a shift into the ironic and with numerous allusions to music, film, literature and art, she breaks numerous taboos. The technique of her monochrome, very striking scenes makes her usually difficult themes airy and transparent and constantly challenges one’s own perception. Street Gallery.

Maryam Mohammadi DIE FRÜHLING (aus der Serie DIE JAHRESZEITEN), 2021

Walter Köstenbauer was born in Weiz in 1956. He studied in Wolfgang Hollegha’s master class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 1974 to 1979. He has lived in Graz since 1981.
Since 1983, rock and stone have been the inspiration and motivation for the painting of the Graz artist Walter Köstenbauer. The encounter with Erich Fried and especially his poem “Zeit der Steine” (Time of Stones) changed Köstenbauer’s view of his preferred motifs in the late eighties. From now on, he concentrates less on depicting and more on interpreting these “silent witnesses” that exist beyond the human sense of time. Quote Köstenbauer (1991): “I want to trace life in the – at least in our eyes – dead material and use the stone as a metaphor for the temporal limitedness of human life.”

The artist sees the stones as a warning to people not to harm our planet so badly through excessive striving for profit maximisation and exploitation. He criticises the ignorance and stupidity of many decision-makers who are blind to the impending destruction of our nature – and, logically, of humanity. A three-month journey through Australia (1996) and the intensive study of Aboriginal cultures and ways of life only strengthened Köstenbauer’s scepticism towards the global machinations of man. It is to be hoped that the closing lines of the Fried poem mentioned above will not soon become sadly topical: “Whoever hears the people talk, knows they will remain stones.”

Walter Köstenbauer “Nur solange der Vorrat reicht”, 2020  / “Only while stocks last”, 2020

Walter Köstenbauer: Focus on painting and graphics; also conceptual works and long-term projects in various techniques (e.g. the project “Viechereien”, of which two thematic works can be seen in this exhibition); Numerous solo exhibitions and exhibition participations at home and abroad; Works in private and public collections.
More at: www.kultur.graz.at/v/koestenbauer.html

Eva Ursprung. Born 1959 in Köflach (AT)
Studies in psychology and linguistics.
Freelance artist since 1986.
Founding member of schaumbad – freies atelierhaus graz.

Eva Ursprung lives and works as a freelance artist and curator in Graz. Actions, installations, objects, art in public, social and electronic space. Works with video, photography and sound; (music) performances. Free impro sax; bass with the Lonesome Hot Dudes.

Founding member of the feminist cultural magazine Eva & Co (1982-1992), 1993 foundation of the art association W.A.S. (Womyn’s Art Support). 1997 – 2003 curator for visual arts at Forum Stadtpark Graz, since 2005 on the board of IMA (Institute for Media Archaeology). 2008 Founding member and president of Schaumbad – Freies Atelierhaus Graz. 1997 Art Promotion Prize of the City of Graz; 2007 Jury Prize of the Associazione Culturale Ateneo delle Idee, Udine (Broccoli Art Group). 1998 bm:ukk studio grant in Fujino (JP), 2014 Artist in Residence at APO33, Nantes (FR); 2015 AiR of the city of Judenburg (AT); 2016 AiR Flux Factory, New York (US), 2017 Galerie Eugen K., Brsec (HR), 2021 Kaznice, Brno (CZ).

Projects, exhibitions and performances in Austria (Kunsthaus Graz, Neue Galerie, <rotor>, Forum Stadtpark, MQ Vienna…), New York, Los Angeles, Brussels, Rijeka, Pula, London, Nantes, Eindhoven, Milan, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Bonn, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Bratislava, Manchester, Hull, Gdansk, Bucharest, Madrid, Glasgow, St. Petersburg, Jerusalem, Maribor, Ljubljana, Udine, Bangkok, Chiangmai, Singapore…

2009/2010 TO|YS ON TOUR, art research and trade trip on a truck from Graz to Lagos/Nigeria.

Keyvan Paydar (*1984 in Tehran, lives in Graz) studied painting and anthropology of art in Iran and sculpture and ceramics in the master classes at the Ortweinschule Graz. He works as a freelance artist and curator in the free studio house Schaumbad Graz, among others. Paydar has participated in international exhibitions and residency programmes, managed a gallery in Graz and organised regional and international art projects.