Uncanny Materials | Foundational Moments of Art Education
Opening | 10.03.2016, 7.00 p.m.
Exhibition dates | 11.03.2016 – 16.05.2016
Venue | Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, main building, Schillerplatz 3, 1010 Vienna, xhibit

A curatorial exhibition, research and education project

Opening hours: Tue–Sun, 10.00 a.m.–6.00 p.m., admission free
Special opening hours: 28.03.2016 (Easter Monday), 01.+05.05.2016 and 16.05.2016 (Whit Monday) / 10.00 a.m.–6.00 p.m.

Opening: Thursday, March 10, 2016, 7:00 p.m.
Welcome address: Eva Blimlinger, Rector of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Introduction: Elke Krasny and Barbara Mahlknecht, Institute for Education in the Arts, Studio of Art and Education
Curators: Elke Krasny and Barbara Mahlknecht

Exhibition design in collaboration with Alexander Ach Schuh

With contributions by

Tal Adler/Friedemann Derschmidt/Elisabeth Samsonow/Karin Schneider/Anna Szöke/Niko Wahl, Anna Artaker, Eva Blimlinger, Ramesch Daha, Zsuzsi Flohr/Benjy Fox-Rosen/Eduard Freudmann/Eva Reinold/Luisa Ziaja, Lena Rosa Händle, Minna L. Henriksson, Belinda Kazeem-Kaminski, Gila Kolb, Martin Krenn, Ina Markova/Rosemarie Burgstaller/Sophie Bitter-Smirnov, Verena Pawlowsky, Sabine Plakolm, Birgit Peter, Dirk Rupnow, Hansel Sato, Sekretariat für Geister, Archivpolitiken und Lücken (Nina Höchtl und Julia Wieger), Anna Schürch, Bernadette Settele, Nora Sternfeld, Suely Rolnik, Wer hat Angst vor dem Museum? (Imayna Caceres/Pêdra Costa/Verena Melgarejo Weinandt).

Book inventory Vol. 3, 1947, © University Library of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

On July 9, 1941, a decree stipulating the foundation of a “master school for art education and the training of secondary school art teachers” went out from the Reichsministerium für Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung (Reich Ministry for Science, Education, and People’s Education) in Berlin to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. The beginning of the institutionalization of a program for art teachers at the Academy, which is still largely unappraised seventy-five years later, has now been made the subject of a curatorial exhibition, research and education project.

Based on research by the historians Ina Markova, Rosemarie Burgstaller, and Sophie Bitter-Smirnov, the project’s curators, Elke Krasny and Barbara Mahlknecht, have conceived of an open archive for the exhibition. This installation allows for an understanding how National Socialism informed art education: materials from the Academy’s University Archive – personnel sheets, lists of students, curricula, exam regulations, minutes of professorial staff meetings, budgets, lists of master school awards and materials to be provided – document the institutional routine.

Activists and artists, many of whom have studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna or are teaching there now, were invited to present works or develop performances related to the subject. The artists’ positions articulate activist interventions into the memory of institutions, relate to the standardization and disciplining of bodies through education, and reveal how women’s politics were implicated in National Socialism. Some of the works reflect present-day changes in the realm of “multidirectional memory” (Michael Rothberg) and the meaning of “migrants’ situated knowledge” (Ayse Güleç) in regard to politics of history.

On April 20 and 21, 2016, an international symposium with lectures, talks, and workshops will explore issues of institutional memory, National Socialist educational policy, the connections between politics of remembrance and artistic practices and question critically hegemonic histories in the field of art education.

Uncanny Materials

Program

Wed, March 16, 2016, 4:00 p.m., xhibit
A Look Back into the Museum
Performance lecture with Wer hat Angst vor dem Museum? (Imayna Caceres, Pêdra Costa, and Verena Melgarejo Weinandt)
(English)

Tue, April 5, 2016, 1:30 to 5:30 p.m., xhibit
In Haunted Archives: (Post-)National Socialist Times, Decolonial Futures
Secretariat for Ghosts, Archival Politics, and Gaps (Nina Höchtl and Julia Wieger)
Workshop (English)

Wed, April 20, 2016, 9:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Thur, April 21, 2016, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Studio Building of the Academy, Multi-Purpose Space
Turning (to) the Archive. Institutional Histories, Educational Regimes, Artistic Practices, and Politics of Remembrance
Symposium: lectures, discussions, and workshops by contributions from Tal Adler/Friedemann Derschmidt/Elisabeth Samsonow/Karin Schneider/Anna Szöke/Niko Wahl, Eva Blimlinger, Zsuzsi Flohr/Benjy Fox-Rosen/Eduard Freudmann/Eva Reinold/Luisa Ziaja, Minna L. Henriksson, Gila Kolb, Elke Krasny, Martin Krenn, Barbara Mahlknecht, Verena Pawlowsky, Sabine Plakolm, Birgit Peter, Dirk Rupnow, Anna Schürch, Bernadette Settele, Nora Sternfeld, Suely Rolnik.

Tue, May 3, 2016, 3:00 to 5:30 p.m., xhibit
The course Kunst, Öffentlichkeit und Geschichtspolitik (Art, Public Sphere, and Politics of History) visits the exhibition Belinda Kazeem-Kaminski (German).

Tue, May 10, 2016, 5:00 p.m., gathering place: x hibit
1941: A Politics-of-History Walk through Vienna
With students from the course Kunst und Öffentlichkeit (Art and the Public Sphere) taught by Elke Krasny (German)

Wed, May 11, 2016, 11:00 a.m., xhibit
The Missing Monument – Commemoration in Progress
Workshop as part of Zsuzsi Flohr’s course Commemoration in Progress (English)

Fri, May 13, 2016, 4:00 p.m., xhibit
Curators’ tour (German/English)

Special thanks for their support and cooperation extend to

Eva Blimlinger and Andrea B. Braidt; the University Archives, the University Library and the Graphic Collection of the Academy, as well as the many others who have supported this project.