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Pursuing, advancing
nachgehen, vorgehen Peithner-Lichtenfels Gallery, Vienna Opening: June 8, 2017, 7 pm Artist Talk: June 21, 2017, 7 pm with Barbara Holub and Lucas Gehrmann (curator, Kunsthalle Wien) Exhibition: June 9-July 7, 2017 „Am Stadtrand“ – 3rd performative walk at the urban periphery
Sept 9, 2010, Vienna-Aspern (walk on the moon) Lambdaprint on Fujicolor 110 x 75 cm 2010/2012 Edition: 2/3 exhibition views
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Barbara Holub presents selected projects she conceived for various urban contexts during the past years, in which she addresses the vital issue, what possibilities art has for establishing new social and communal values. The projects are connected by the essential questions: What kind of visions do we have? And how do we take initiative to pursue them? The artist develops performative situations for urban action, which do not promote activism in a direct sense. They rather encourage the participants discretely to assume individual responsibility. What risks are we ready to take?
Which poetic moments can counteract the omnipresent call for pragmatism? Barbara Holub activates the ambivalence between speechlessness and action thus counteracting the loudness of striving for media attention. For „More Opportunities“ (Plymouth Arts Centre/ GB) Barbara Holub staged a silent demonstration with white reflecting plackards devoid of a slogan, which assumes the notion of routine through repetition. The demonstration refers to the dockyard strike in Plymouth (1969), which was driven by the demonstrators’ confident cheerful singing of „We shall overcome“. In „Am Stadtrand“ / “At the Urban Periphery” (Vienna-Aspern/ A) Barbara Holub invited to participate in performative suburban walks „before architecture“ in which all those present qualities that did not find entrance in the planning of Aspern-Lake City could be rediscovered. This resulted in the making of the audio piece „Die Blue Frog Society spaziert auf den Mond“ (“The Blue Frog Society Walks on the Moon”) for Ö1-Kunstradio (with Bruno Pisek). Since then the Blue Frog Society gathers at various places and occasions (e.g. The 64th UN NGO/ DPI congress in Bonn; Czech Center, New York; DOX Center for Contemporary Art, Prague) to explore the possibilities of belonging by creating a „non-territorial habitat“. In the exhibition the performances/ urban interventions are presented through photo pieces, drawings, sculptures and a video projection. The exhibition marks the gallery’s new profile, which is dedicated to societally engaged issues. |
< "At the Urban Periphery" - 2nd performative walk, June 20, 2010, Vienna-Aspern: Voices from an international city of the future (asphalt talk) Lambdaprint on Fujicolor 80 x 46 cm 2010/2012 > "At the Urban Periphery" - 2nd performative walk, June 20, 2010, Vienna-Aspern: Voices from an international city of the future (soccer field talk) Lambdaprint on Fujicolor 80 x 46 cm 2010/2012 < “The Second World Non-Congress of the Missing Things“ (workers in the dunes – after Kobo Abe) Lambdaprint on Fujicolor 80 x 46 cm 2014/2017 |
