Kunstverein fAN

Think of your favourite drinking establishment. Does it have a smooth mahogany bar and the best dirty martini this side of the Atlantic? Or are the drinks cheap, the lights low and the staff non-judgemental? Since the popularisation of bohemian lifestyles in the mid 19th Century, bars have offered refuge to artists who wanted to live outside of societal conventions. After all, what better way to show that you aren’t a member of the much-ridiculed petit bourgeois than getting wasted and starting a bar-brawl? But more than just an arena to act out in, bars have historically been places for artists to meet and spend time with each other, seemingly as important to the creation of a ‘scene’ as a city’s galleries and museums. Chloe Stead, Aug 2017

Elisabeth von Samsonow ORACLE Mittwoch 7. Juni 19 Uhr Elisabeth von Samsonow betätigt sich als ernsthaftes Erdtelephon, als Geo Durchsageapparat oder als Orakel. Sie orakelt zu Vergangenheit und Zukunft der Erde, wobei sie gelegentlich den Zeigefinger aus dem Tüllberg streckt und die Fingerspitze dem Publikum zur geo- elektrischen Kontaktaufnahme entgegenstreckt. [Quelle: Einladung]

Towards a financial model derived from the Body: BioLogics. The Economy can be considered as a heritage of the ancient house hold and its inherent laws. Finance could be seen as a a set of means, methods and technologies of distributing potentials from the past and the present to the future. Due to its abstraction and importance to ensure the survival of societies, finance has been and still remains one of the core questions of how culture and societies define?themselves. With its growing mathematization, formalization and modeli- zation and the installation of probability as its central tool finance has increasingly driven away from the needs and realities?of the bodies that are subject to its laws and prescriptions, i.e.?monetary profits. Irini Athanassakis would like to propose a Bio-Praxeia of „Finance“ and consider Milk as one of the first currencies (after cells/sperm, and blood). Heinz Stahlhut zu den Muttermilchbildern von Irini Athanassakis: Beiläufiger geht es kaum: Mittig auf zwei A4-Blättern sind einige helle Flecken verteilt. In Grösse und Intensität variierend bilden sie ein kleines Archipel in der ansonsten unbearbeiteten Fläche des cremeweissen Papiers. Die lakonisch mit "rechts" und "links" betitelten und datierten Papierarbeiten sind jedoch nicht mit Bleistift, Tusche oder Aquarell geschaffen, sondern mit dem durchaus ungewöhnlichen Kunst-Stoff Muttermilch. In der Stillphase ihres kurz zuvor geborenen Kindes hat Athanassakis je einige Tropfen aus der rechten und linken Brust auf das Papier getröpfelt und in einer weiteren Arbeit mit der Muttermilch das Wort "mer" geschrieben und dabei, wie der Titel andeutet, mit der phonetischen Analogie der beiden französischen Wörter mer (Meer) und mère (Mutter) gespielt, die wie ein Verweis das ozeanische Lebensgefühl des Kleinkindes in seinen ersten Wochen erscheint. Athanassakis' Zeichnungen mit Muttermilch bewegen sich also - wie häufig bei ihr - in einem auch ökonomisch umkämpften Feld. Damit steht die Künstlerin durchaus in einer Tradition der künstlerischen Arbeit mit (eigenen) Körperflüssigkeiten. [Quelle: Einladung]

Aus der Erforschung der Photosynthese ergibt sich die Erforschung des Wachstums, aus der Verwandlung zur Transpflanze die Geo-Anatomie. Daraus folgt: Die Erde ist eine ekstatische Entität. Direkt neben dem U-Bahnausgang Nestroyplatz/Praterstrasse (U1) befindet sich der Space des fAN. Immer wieder aus der Röhre nach oben, das ist eine Feier der Explosion wert. [Quelle: Einladung]

Since completing residencies at the Villa Lena Foundation, Tuscany (2014), and MAD Agency, Paris (2015) I am excited to share my work through a new dialogue and experience in Vienna. Since leaving London I have lived and worked in Athens and Paris. I am keen to further my understanding by engaging with the Vienna art scene. By participating in “All thought is in signs” I hope to work with local and international artists, creatively and intellectually in order to pursue dynamic and progressive exchanges in this unique situation. I aim to produce works that create formal tension, where boundaries between painting and canvas are blurred. By re-forming paintings and their stretcher-frame devices as objects the works produced comment on sustainability in a time of limited means and financial restriction and aim to critique the validity of painting as a singular mode of creativity. Through experimentation with the use of everyday materials I aim to question the conventional image of the painter; my works are celebratory as they free the painter from the conventional role of image-maker. Studying Film at Southampton Institute in England (2002-2005) I developed my interest in the study of avant-garde cinema. By the time I was awarded an Erasmus Scholarship to study in Salzburg, I began making artworks through a path of self-initiated experiential-research and collaboration with those whom I was fortunate enough to have met. I have experimented with my work in several ways and I am confident that the directions this has taken me are artistically valid. I’ve come to live out a mode of making work that involves the stimulation of discovery with the aim of invigorating more discovery. For the exhibition “All thought is in signs” at fAN my aim is to introduce and share a collection of discoveries, in the form of ‘Painting-Objects’ which I have made over the last few years. I attempt to enter into the medium of painting itself with a new independent language. Bobby Dowler, 2016 [Quelle: Einladung]