Newspaper Wall 1992

large-scale slide projections onto a wall of the academy of applied art

art project: obviously . continuing

general:
after two months of advertising blocks (design: graphic arts masterclass, prof. lürzer) large-scale art slides are being projected onto a wall of the academy of applied art within the framework of the museum in progress project NEWSPAPER WALL. young artists between their early twenties and mid-thirties are each producing a series of twelve slides which are being projected onto a wall surface of eighteen by eighteen metres for fourteen days per series.

details:
the medium with its own laws, the character of an event, the continuing, clearly visible pictures, the extension of a picture across a surface in public space and the necessary proportion of tension in a work for the museum in progress project NEWSPAPER WALL as well as other aesthetic production form the coordinates of this art project.

public space is no longer particularly a space of political, ideological agitation or filled with intentions for moral enlightenment as in the sixties. and this bare wall is not simply public space but rather located and localised within a place and an event. the fourteen projects which have been worked out reflect these structural conditions.

a new generation of young austrian artists (almost all of them have studied at the academy of applied art or the academy of fine arts in vienna) reflects on and reflects the conditions of projects, is cautious about making connections which run the risk of categorising them, and proceeds carefully with things and situations which could definitively pin them down. it is precisely these distrustful, courageous, reflective artists who are nevertheless deeply involved in their work who have shown interest in this project. not all of the works can be realised at the moment.

so this exhibition in the media space of a central european city has not become a contextual, monolithic statement about young austrian art but some themes can be traced in the work and some ambivalent points described:

* (art) discourses which took place in the past or which were successful are being taken up again
* the inventory and insignia of city space are considered in the work
* advertising, which through the poster is the most visible and potent picture surface in public space, is used as a movable backdrop and included in a tension on parallel levels
* the fragmentation and formation of patterns
* the ornamental and laconic gesture
* the return to a narrative consisting of picture puzzles
* the use of language as slogan, stimulus or as the trigger of associations, it imitates and semantically counter-checks linguistic usage in advertising

the spaces and languages of this art are, however, defined by their limits and run the risks of:
breaking sexual and moral taboos, clichée, decoration, the reserve and precarious fragility of an enigmatic individual world, complexity etc.

the works of these artists focus on games with ambivalence and a sensitive balance in the areas of obscene / sacred, enigmatic / publicly significant, decorative / polemical, laconic / deliberative instrumental handling.

the title "obviously . continuing" signifies not only the carousel of slides but also the circle, the return, the loop, the repetition. contextual reference to this structure can be found in the slides.

this project, and especially the selection chosen by me, is to a large extent codetermined by communicative developments and the discourse which has spanned itself between us all and intertwined us without covering our differences.

participating artists in chronological order from march to september 1992, fourteen days large-scale projection each on the wall of the academy of applied art:

fritz grosz / max böhme / oliver croy / margarete jahrmann / christian hutzinger / richard fleissner / matta wagnest / carola dertnig / wolfgang schrom / bonita szabo / dorit margreiter / richard hoeck / manuela burghardt / stefan beck / bernhard cella / klaus scherübel.