Tag: Exhibition

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? by Steffi Alte, Saskia Te Nicklin & Patrícia J. Reis

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

by Steffi Alte, Saskia Te Nicklin & Patrícia J. Reis

Opening: 29.9.2023, 19h

Midd opening: 14.10.2023, 19h

Finissage: 3.11.2023, 19h

Exhibition duration: 30.9 – 3.11.2023

Opening hours: Every Saturday from 14h to 18th

About the exhibition:

“A culture of domination is anti-love. It requires violence to sustain itself. To choose love is to go against the prevailing values of the culture. Many people feel unable to love either themselves or others because they do not know what love is.” Bell Hooks (1994)

In the light of the current situation deeply shaped by conflicts and disasters caused by anthropocentric politics, actions and practices, we ask ourselves the question: “What’s love got to do with it?”

In her writings Bell Hooks identifies Love as a blind spot within the human struggle for liberation, from oppression and exploitation. The white male supremacist domination of the planet attributed to love becoming a symptom of weakness, that love has no value. We might have forgotten what love really is or perhaps we’ve never really understood its meaning since it became capitalized and traded as a commodity-chain, sold as desire that can and should be consumed at a fast pace. Love in its true meaning is something that people might feel ashamed to relate with, as an old-fashioned concept, in the same way Tina Turner declined love in her musical success hit in 1984.

Loving is a verb that demands for action and for choice and can become an important tool to decolonize and to demystify systems of oppression. We need to critically question our position within the planet of beings and things. To love is to care for the others. Love is rooted in community, in exchange and democratic choices. In order to recover love we need social changes rooted in new love ethics. The exhibition “What’s love got to do with it?” aims to be an essay and a tribute to new love politics acknowledging caring as a crucial facet of Love for creating, repairing, and empowering our relations with the world.

Photo © Janine Schranz

With the kind support of:

Uno, Dois, Drei… NO NO NO (Display) Finissage

In Isabella Kohlhuber’s installation at Artistic Bokeh the black glass window becomes a changeable interface. The artist applies interactive devices to reveal the threshold of function and dysfunction in the languages of humans and machines. Kohlhuber uses adhesive foil fixed on the window, displaying letter-forms as permanent disposable tools. Motion sensors cause viewers involuntarily to activate or deactivate its visibility. The message thereby occasionally withdraws from perceptibility.

NO NO NO (display) opens a conceptual gap between the showroom’s window and its minimal content, while gently swapping between elements of negation (“no”) and activation (“on”). Does the artist intend to play off today’s necessity of an affirmative, pleasing language against an inner silent resistance? And does repetition, as given in the title, make a gesture of refusal stronger? Roughly, one would answer: “it depends on the context” (e.g. “no means no”, the feminist slogan against sexual violence, which points out the difficulty in understanding whether an expression is intended to mean “no”). While trying to decontextualize the artist asks “can there ever be no context?”

Exhibition: 8th October – 10th November

Finissage: 10th November 19:00

The exhibition is part of the program UNO, DOIS, DREI… AN EXHIBITION IN THREE INSTALLMENTS a Mz* Baltazar’s Lab curatorial project in collaboration with Artistic Bokeh in MuseumsQuartier. For this exhibition series Patricia J. Reis and Anna T. have invited artists focusing on language in a multitude of ways. Being based in a place that has been so divided in the context of immense sociopolitical changes, while becoming more multi-cultural, the curators wanted to look into language as a technology of communicating, connecting, and coming together. The exhibition series examines the visual language of colonialism (and who or what becomes illegal), the human and machine language and its threshold of function and dysfunction, and the embodied language of a queer migrant body that opens up and connects with other bodies and spirits alike. Mz* Baltazar’s curatorial viewpoint brings together artists from different media and backgrounds that speak to the diversity of the creative hub that is Vienna. Mz* Baltazar’s Labfurther aims at highlighting the lengthy process of artistic practice as research in the framework of social and political themes, such as migration, Eurocentrism, cyborgs, queerness, and the overarching theme of language. We are happy to present Mariel Rodríguez, Isabella Kohlhuber, and Pêdra Costa in a series of exhibitions running from August to December 2016 at the space of Artistic Bokeh in the MQ’s Electric Avenue.

uno, dois, drei… an exhibition in three installments – NO NO NO

Opening: 7th October, 19h

Exhibition: 8th October – 10th November

uno, dois, drei… – Flowers of Evil, Mariel Rodríguez – Artist Talk / Finissage

Mz* Baltazar’s Lab would like to welcome you to the artist talk and finissage of Mariel Rodríguez’s “Flowers of Evil” show in Artistic Bokeh (MQ) Friday September 30th at 18:00.

The installation composed of ready-mades, constructed materials, and videos is part of the artist’s ongoing project focusing on the language f colonialism, the aesthetics of the museum, and the aftermath of cultural appropriation.

It traces the encounter of a millenary sacred plant with occidental science and its outcome as a sort of a botanical Frankenstein, so desired and praised as feared and persecuted. The installation proposes to rethink the history of cocaine, as an illegal recreational drug and a western construct, to shed light on the effects of imperialism on our relationship to nature.

During the finissage Mariel will present a new video, and artist, audience, and curators will join in the conversation of language, otherness, and creativity as a response to oppressive politics. Join us for drinks, nibbles, and a chat, and share the experience with us.

About the Exhibition Series

Mz* Baltazar’s Lab is proud to present this new curatorial project, a series of exhibitions in collaboration with Artistic Bokeh in MuseumsQuartier. For this exhibition series Patricia J. Reis and Anna T. have invited artists focusing on language in a multitude of ways. Being based in a place that has been so divided in the context of immense sociopolitical changes, while becoming more multi-cultural, the curators wanted to look into language as a technology of communicating, connecting, and coming together. The exhibition series examines the visual language of colonialism (and who or what becomes illegal), the human and machine language and its threshold of function and dysfunction, and the embodied language of a queer migrant body that opens up and connects with other bodies and spirits alike. Our curatorial viewpoint brings together artists from different media and backgrounds that speak to the diversity of the creative hub that is Vienna. We further aim at highlighting the lengthy process of artistic practice as research in the framework of social and political themes, such as migration, Eurocentrism, cyborgs, queerness, and the overarching theme of language. We are happy to present Mariel Rodríguez, Isabella Kohlhuber, and Pêdra Costa in a series of exhibitions running from August to December 2016 at the space of Artistic Bokeh who offered us this opportunity to collaborate and showcase Mz* Baltazar’s work in the MQ’s Electric Avenue.

This work is funded and supported by kültüř gemma! 2016, and its presentation made possible by Mz Baltazar’s Laboratory and Artistic Bokeh.

uno, dois, drei… an exhibition in three installments – Flowers of Evil

Mz* Baltazar’s Lab is proud to present the new curatorial project, a series of exhibitions in collaboration with Artistic Bokeh in MuseumsQuartier. For this exhibition series Patricia J. Reis and Anna T. have invited artists focusing on language in a multitude of ways. Being based in a place that has been so divided in the context of immense sociopolitical changes, while becoming more multi-cultural, the curators wanted to look into language as a technology of communicating, connecting, and coming together. The exhibition series examines the visual language of colonialism (and who or what becomes illegal), the human and machine language and its threshold of function and dysfunction, and the embodied language of a queer migrant body that opens up and connects with other bodies and spirits alike. Our curatorial viewpoint brings together artists from different media and backgrounds that speak to the diversity of the creative hub that is Vienna. We further aim at highlighting the lengthy process of artistic practice as research in the framework of social and political themes, such as migration, Eurocentrism, cyborgs, queerness, and the overarching theme of language. We are happy to present Mariel Rodríguez, Isabella Kohlhuber, and Pêdra Costa in a series of exhibitions running from August to December 2016 at the space of Artistic Bokeh who offered us this opportunity to collaborate and showcase Mz* Baltazar’s work in the MQ’s Electric Avenue.

Part 1 – Mariel Rodríguez – Flowers of Evil

On April 1857 the Novara, a navy ship of the Austrian Empire, departed from Trieste into a world wide expedition ordered by Maximilian von Habsburg. In 1859, The Novara returned to European soil, bringing back a vast collection of botanical, zoological and mineral samples. Between the botanical import there were 30 KG of coca leaves, brought directly form the Andean Region into the German Chemistry Laboratories of the University of Göttingen…

FLOWERS OF EVIL presents an ongoing artistic research about the coca plant and its journey(s) to Europe. It traces the encounter of a millenary sacred plant with occidental science and its outcome as a sort of a botanical Frankenstein, so desired and praised as feared and persecuted. The installation proposes to rethink the history of cocaine, as an illegal recreational drug and a western construct, to shed light on the effects of imperialism on our relationship to nature.