09.22–10.16.2022
Group Exhibition
Various locations in Graz and Styria, Austria
Wars are inscribed into the history of steirischer herbst. The Cold War overshadowed its early years while later editions took place with the Yugoslav Wars right next door. Painfully activating faded memories of World Wars I and II, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is the newest entry to this long list of battles growling just around the corner.
Yet one still sometimes feels that in this cozy corner of Austria, like in many other snug places in Europe, wars and even conflicts are out of place. Outbursts of compassion towards individuals affected by wars happening “elsewhere” are sincere, no doubt, but at the same time, the world here is still safe and one simply “does not do war.” The frontline is put at a distance, unseen and unheard, until the repressed returns with a vengeance. This autumn, steirischer herbst’s dense program of exhibitions, performances, and discussions addresses this looming presence of battles mentally kept at bay.
Transient Witness at Rencontres Internationales in Berlin
From 16 to 21 August 2022, at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt!
05-11.07.22
Film Festival (Official Selection)
Screenings:
06.07 16:00 Variétés 2
07.07 16:30 La Baleine
08.07 10:00 La Baleine
16.06.2022- 17.07.2022
Group Exhibition
Gosset Site, Brussel, (HISK)
What's in an artwork? is the third in the series of HISK alumni exhibitions and highlights the versatility and diversity of the alumni. Curator Bert Ghysels titles the exhibition What's in an artwork? in analogy with the expression 'what's in a name'.
28.05.2022- 13.08.2022
Group Exhibition
The Jerusalem Artists' House
The story of the exhibition “Chad Gadya” lies in the tragic cycle, which is at the core of our complex, controversial existence. A cumulative song, in which each verse adds another detail to the plot, the piyyut (liturgical poem) Had Gadya describes a chain of intensifying disasters. The exhibition does not seek to further illustrate the piyyut, but rather to try to extract the code—which recycles itself in events whose end is foretold—from the work of artists who experience the public and private manifestations of the horror cycle
23.05.2022- 09.09.2022
Group Exhibition
The Negev Museum
Dance is, for the most part, a wordless expression of an idea as well as an opportunity to discharge tension and find release. Similar to most performance arts, dance takes place in a specific place at a given time. In the exhibition “MOTION”, the artists chose to commemorate movement and dance resonating different eras, expressing ritual, conflict, and sacrifice. The tension between visual art and movement runs through the exhibit to link works in space and time.
Louvre Museum, 08.05.2022 at 20:00 PM
Auditorium Michel Laclotte (Full programme)
Transient Witness at the Moving Image Art Prize
06.05-05.06.2022
Solo Exhibition
KRIEG? Hasselt
The World is Round and People Meet in the Corners is a result of Assaf Gruber’s ongoing investigation of how politics intersect with art and its institutions. It reveals the human stories and shifting ideological values at the “back-end” of cultural institutions. His exhibition at KRIEG? will consist of a video installation, a sculpture and a series of photographs...
24.03-18.04.2022
Group Exhibition
HKW Brelin
The Whole Life. Archives & Imaginaries reflects on archives as places for counter-narratives and illuminates the profound links between archives and society. During the three-day congress, artists and scholars will develop alternative narrative forms and research strategies in experimental formats. They demonstrate how comprehensively archives, as infrastructures of preservation, perpetuate hegemonic thinking. At the same time, we see what methods and practices are necessary in order to make archives usable as a resource for reflecting contemporary questions and for future knowledge production. In the exhibition, artists unfold their own strategies for dealing with archival material in eight installation-based case studies: Assaf Gruber’s docufictional film Transient Witness provides insight into a world-famous art collection from a dog’s perspective. Charlotte Eifler and Clarissa Thieme’s film installation relates digital technologies, witnessing and coming to terms with war trauma in the former Yugoslavia. Tony Cokes extracts fragments from historical reports of explicit violence and makes it possible to experience what this means for the politics of memory today.
25.03.2022 20:00
A Cumulative Colloquium
HKW Berlin, Free Admission
What role do displacement, loss, incorporation and mutual exchange play in collections and archives? What can be learned from this about the complex constellations of identity and memory, private and public, ideal and real value in the cultural realm? Based on the Hebrew/Aramaic folk song Chad Gadya, a counting story in which the character of each verse defeats the protagonist of the preceding stanza, the juxtaposition of destruction and restoration is understood in this event as an ordering principle that reveals the perplexing cultural successions and accumulations of memories in collections and archives. The polymathic and performative seminar is moderated by the Post Brothers. It is a collective investigation featuring a plot of dialogues, readings, performances, music, images and drama.
With Mieke Bal, Heide Rezepa-Zabel, Joshua Simon, Elena Vogman
Concept: Assaf Gruber, Post Brothers
18.03-15.05.2022
Group Exhibition
Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź
What a Fabulous Place We Are In are the words repeatedly spoken by Andrzej Mitan and Cezary Staniszewski during their performance in 1992. The title, with its message, is ironic. It signals, on one hand, the distance from the reality, and on the other the entanglement of artists in their aspirations to be elevated above everyday life. Geopolitical conditions are not without their relevance either - in the performance, the artists used a photo presenting the ‘architects’ of the 1945 Yalta conference, who established what would be the global spheres of influence after World War II, the issue which is coming back to us with all its impact now. The exhibition has been composed of the artworks donated to the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź between 2008 and 2021.
Assaf Gruber receives the 2022/23 fellowship of the gkfd, a Berlin artistic research grant program for Edith 6∞.
