ewa stern

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Survival Guide 6 - Hildegard Absalon

Bernadette Weigel’s film about Hildegard Absalon, an Austrian tapestry artist. She taught decorative design and decorative textiles at the University of Vienna. She is also a freelance gobelin weaver and has realized designs by artists like Maria Lassnig, Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Günter Brus among others. Since 1982 she has focused on realizing exclusively her own designs. Hildegard Absalon is a master of the detail in this now only seldom used technique. Her works are evidence of great wit and self-referential power.

Editing: Ewa Stern

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Think Global, Build Social! - Architectures for a Better World

The Architekturzentrum Wien presents in its new exhibition examples of social and sustainable architectur. The exhibition “Think Global. Build Social! Architectures for a Better World” has been produced in cooperation with the Deutsche Architekturmuseum. 

More and more people live in cities. In Latin America and the industrialized world more than 70 percent of the population lives in urban areas, with an increasing number of them living in slums, without affordable access to urbanism and architecture. 

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Jürgen Messensee - Realities

... In Jürgen Messensee’s pictures there is the erotic aspect of movement: to encounter, to find or lose each other, you have to be constantly on the move – in a movement of perpetual exploration.

Shapes allude to women, organs, body parts, exploring the canvases’ surface with compositions, yet avoiding direct symbolic references to natural forms. Each one of these shapes evokes a sensual situation; by a gesture, a posture or a direct hint about the surrounding.... (Cem Angeli)

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Meret Openheim - Retrospective @ Bank Austria Kunstforum in Vienna

  Meret Oppenheim is one of the most important and individual artists of the twentieth century. Even while she was still young, Breakfast in Fur – a cup clothed in fur – turned the scandal-ridden muse into a legend and ensured her position as the leading exponent of French Surrealism.

To commemorate Oppenheim’s hundredth birthday the Vienna Kunstforum is presenting the first ever retrospective in Austria devoted to this fascinating artist. The show is on from 21.03 till 4.09.2013.

Subsequently the exhibition will be shown in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin.

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Az W Gold - Die Sammlung

Anlässlich des 20ten Geburtstags des Architekturzentrums Wien wird im Zuge der von Sonja Pisarik, Monika Platzer, Katrin Stingl und Ute Waditschatka kuratierten Sonderausstellung “Das Gold des Az W” die bislang unbekannte Architektursammlung des Architekturzentrums ins Rampenlicht gerückt. Zu sehen sind ausgewählte Exponate österreichischer Architekturgeschichte vom 21. März bis zum 22. Juli 2013.

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KHM - Kunstkammer

Reopening of Kunstkammer Vienna at the Kusthistorsches Museum

On March 3rd, 2013 one of the world’s most important chambers of art, the Kunstkammer Vienna of the Kunsthistorisches MuseumVienna will reopen after being closed for ten years. 

The most important collection of its kind in the world, the Kunstkammer Vienna evolved from the Habsburg’s treasuries assembled during the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque. The collection is regarded as a reflection of the entire universe, its task to transmit knowledge and amaze all who see this fabulous realm of fantasy and curiosity. Extensive renovations have made this gem – presented on 29,000 sq-ft - into a unique magic space of imagination. Be enchanted by the incredible goldsmith work, bronze, ivory and wood sculptures, and exotic objects such as ostrich eggs, the horn of the legendary unicorn, and the golden Saliera by Benvenuto Cellini. Enjoy a journey through time and enter a world of beauty, esprit, curiosities, and magical splendor. (wh/ek)

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Miguel Barceló - Matter and Form. From Matter to Metaphysics

Barceló gives us an insight into his creative process, where matter becomes the primary means of expression, and where in the rough surfaces of the paintings something serious and obstinate, even violent, becomes perceptible. The bursts of sensual creativity are evident, unfolding together with a scrupulous registering of what is observable in the world: Subjects distorted by the agitated perception of the artist. (Cem Angeli)

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Soviet Modernism - exhibition at Az W, Vienna

A clear break with history is one of the main characteristics of modernism. However, in no part of the world there has been such an abrupt and thorough break with tradition as in the Soviet Union. The history of architecture there unfolded in an incredible succession of aesthetical and political back and forth, from constructivism of the 1919-1932 to Stalin’s socialist realism 1932 – 1954, the shift to modernism after 1955, until the dissolution of the USSR. Even though constructivism and Stalinist architecture are well known in these parts, in Western architecture history there is little knowledge about Soviet modernist architecture of the post-war period. The exhibition project „Soviet Modernism“, curated by Katharina Ritter, Ekaterina Shapiro-Obermair and Alexandra Wachter shows the architecture of 14 former Soviet republics in that particular era. Beyond a Russian perspective, the show is focused on the architecture in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Belarus. (cem angeli)

On display in the Az W in Vienna till February 2013.

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Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out

Anton Chekhov

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Valerie Blass - It Has to Stand on its Own (French with EngSub)

Valerie Blass’s sculptures frequently emerge from a process of improvisation and experimentation. Using found objects from different historical periods, she incorporates diverse sculptural techniques to create hybrid forms. Fused with a classical vocabulary, her work transforms the tradition of figurative sculpture.

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The Eight - Hungary Way to Modernism

In Autumn 2012 showed an exhibition featuring the group of eight painters – Károly Kernstok, Béla Czóbel, Róbert Berény, Ödön Márffy, Lajos Tihanyi, Dezsö Orbán, Bertalan Pór, Dezsö Czigány – who around 1909/10 launched Hungarian painting into a new phase through their connection to the most modern movements that Europe had to offer at that time.

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CARWASH trailer

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Az W - Hands on Urbanism

Whether in Brazilian Favelas, Turkish Gecekondu, or in Vienna’s Schmelz: For their strategies of self-empowerment, citizens do not need any ideological superstructure. The exhibition “Hands-On Urbanism” at Architekturzentrum Wien from 15 of March till 25 of June 2012 reflects historical and contemporary strategies of city development initiated from citizens. (Cem Angeli)

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MUSA - Beauty Contest

Schönheit und ihre Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion sind in den mitunter divergierenden Sichtweisen verschiedener KünstlerInnen im MUSA zu sehen. Ein CastYourArt Ausstellungsporträt anlässlich der Ausstellung Beauty Contest vom 17. Februar bis 26. Mai 2012 im Wiener MUSA - Museum Startgalerie Artothek. (ca)

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Shary Boyle - Heartburn Porcelain

Shary Boyle, a Toronto-based artist, began in the late ’90s with sculptural work. Initially, she used a modeling compound for her figures that can be hardened in a regular oven. Inspired by a combination of mythology and current events, her figures are fantastic, fragile interpretations of the world. She uses the fantastic as a form of escaping from the banal and depressing elements of our daily existence, which, according to her, was how the whole theme of her work began. Almost ten years later, the artist continues to working with porcelain, having become an expert on the techniques of its production, as well as its history. Contrary to the modeling compound she used for her early work, porcelain is a medium rich in history. She therefore no longer creates these figures only from the material. They are part of a tradition which began in Europe in Meissen, and whose symbolically strong references the artist uses. (Wolfgang Haas)

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Michel de Broin - Matters of Circulation

The sculptures and public interventions of the Canadian artist Michel de Broin refer to a certain extent to the intermediate conditions of this halfway point. They capture those transformations that have resulted from the greater history of modern progress, objects which are already slightly outdated but still determine our everyday life: for example, the car, that status symbol of progress, which is usually only used by one person at a time, consuming gas and destroying the environment. However, at the same time, de Broin’s works also refer to the many new formulas for progress: a general slowing-down as a strategy for environmental protection, a balanced economy without a loss of energy, postindustrial visions of sustainability – and the appropriate means towards this conversion which occupy our life. (wolfgang haas)

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Herbert Brandl - Painting

Herbert Brandl, born in Graz in 1959, is currently one of Austria's most discussed painters. In a career spanning more than thirty years he has created an oeuvre of international dimensions. In 2007 he represented Austria at Venice Biennale.