PROHIBITIONS IN THE SPACE OF ART
Selected works from the 2011 EIKON photography competition23 June– 29 August 2011
Opening:
22 June 2011, 8:00pm Leopold Museum
Museumsplatz 1
1070 Vienna, Austria
Artists: Anna Artaker, Anja Bohnhof & Karen Weinert, Mimi Connolly, Catharina Freuis, Tobias Hübel, Moseid Geir, G.R.A.M., Marko Lipus, Sabine Maier, Adam de Neige, Zoran Pavelic, Dario Srbic, Wouter Verbeylen
Jury: Ulrich Haas-Pursiainen (Curator, Photography Triennial Backlight, Tampere), Václav Macek (Curator, European Month of Photography, Bratislava), Matthias Michalka (Curator, MUMOK, Vienna), Eva Schlegel (Artist, Austrian commissioner of the Venice Biennale 2011), Artur Walther (Art collector, The Walther Collection, Neu-Ulm)
Art is “fragile.” “Don’t touch.” “Don’t cross the line.” And even the space behind the line, the space reserved for viewers, is subject to rules of behaviour. The entire space surrounding art—in particular the museum—is a legally and morally regulated zone. Art’s supposed ability to criticize and defy regulation renders precisely such regulation clearly visible when it applies to the space surrounding art. And when the artistic space is public, the discussion grows broader still, with its focus shifting to society’s attitude towards behavioural freedoms in the cultural space. The exhibition of winning works from EIKON’s photography competition, entitled Verbote im Kunstraum [Prohibitions in the Artistic Space], is meant as an international contribution to this discussion of restrictive conditions in the supposedly free space of art.
The initial impulse for the EIKON Photography Competition was provided by Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier complex: the summer of 2009 witnessed the beginning of heated debates on regulation of the public art-space when the property’s administrators asked citizens to adhere to the rules of the premises for reasons of safety. At the same place where, soon thereafter, demonstrations took place for more freedom in proximity to art and culture, EIKON—the international magazine for photography and media art—has now found a way, supported by the Leopold Museum, to continue the debate and allow the topic to be taken on artistically.
The winning projects, as well as further competition entries selected by the international jury of experts, will be exhibited at the Leopold Museum on the occasion of EIKON’s twentieth anniversary and as part of the festival celebrating ten years of the MQ.