Discussion: Talking Through Weibel

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Presented by The Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures as part of the current exhibition ‘Thinking Through Weibel’ Vienna Art Week 2025 Talking Through Weibel asks a simple, far-reaching question: how do exhibitions and archives teach us – artists, researchers, and the wider public – how to see, remember, and think? Taking the current exhibition Thinking Through Weibel and the Weibel Archive as an opening path, this evening explores art as a learning system: how exhibitions and collections structure cultural memory, how digitization can widen (and bias) access, and how exhibition-making can produce embodied, situated knowledge that differs from conventional academic formats. Looking at Peter Weibel himself – artist, theorist, institution-builder – and drawing on his extensive, partly digital archive, the evening considers how large-scale collections can be made meaningfully accessible: through digitization and metadata practices, open interfaces and display strategies, as well as curatorial and pedagogical frameworks that invite plural forms of learning. The program begins with a guided tour of the exhibition, continues with a keynote on ‘What is Contemporary Art History?’ and culminates in a roundtable that considers exhibitions and archives as shared infrastructures of learning. Rather than closing a legacy, we open questions and methods – testing how playful, critical, and inclusive practices can shape what and how we learn together. Program 17:30 Exhibition tour with Brooklyn J. Pakathi 18:30 Keynote lecture by Boris Čučković Berger 19:30 Round table / Discussion: Panelists: Robert Müller, Brooklyn J. Pakathi, Margit Rosen, Charlotte Reuß Moderation: Denise H. Sumi This exhibition is initiated by the Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures and emerges through collaboration with the Institute Collection and Archive and the AIL, all part of the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

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