By way of movement and speech, curator and writer Raimundas Malašauskas will elaborate on sekretas, a peculiar Lithuanian term that both means secret and secretary, the old-fashioned piece of furniture that serves as a place for reading, writing, and storing paper. sekretas is also the title of Marija Olšauskaitė’s exhibition and the name of a popular game played by youngsters in Lithuania. Playing it, children would enter a courtyard or a garden and place small objects under a piece of glass: flower petals, pictures, a note, golden bottle caps, shells, and other characteristic elements would be organized and composed into a material expression of friendship. Altogether, Malašauskas will dive into the word’s complexity, its multiple meanings, and the many (hi)stories it provokes.
Raimundas Malašauskas (b. 1973, Lithuania) has co-written an opera libretto (Cellar Door by Loris Greaud, Palais de Tokyo, 2008), co-produced a television show (CAC TV, Vilnius, 2004 – 2006), served as an agent for dOCUMENTA (13), released Paper Exhibition, the book of his selected writings (Sternberg Press, 2012), co-curated 9th Baltic Triennial of International Art, Vilnius (2005), the 9th Mercosul Biennal, Porto Alegre (2013), the 9th Liverpool Biennale (2017), and exhibited his childhood paintings in a choregraphic composition by Alix Eynaudi (2019). His most recent projects are trust & confusion, an eight-month-long live art exhibition at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2021), 914, the Russian Pavilion in the 59th Venice Biennale (closed), and Mars Returns, a 14-hour long event at Mykolas Žilinskas Gallery, Kaunas (2022).
Dialoge is a discursive program organized by the newly founded Center for Contemporary Art at the University of Graz, which will take place from May 16-21 at the Grazer Kunstverein. Under the title Art – Political Responsibility – Social Justice the program examines current socio-political issues. The program focuses on political conflict zones in Europe, diversity in the context of questioning and redefining concepts of identity, as well as social justice, colonialism, and imperialism.
Theoretical and artistic responses to stereotyping and attributions related to gender form the core of the third Dialog. With contributions by David Getsy (lecture), Alexandra Hammond (performance), Furusho von Puttkammer (performance), Masha Godovannaya (lecture), and Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca (screening).
For the most recent schedule, please visit the website of the Center for Contemporary Art, University of Graz.
Dialoge is a discursive program organized by the newly founded Center for Contemporary Art at the University of Graz, which will take place from May 16-21 at the Grazer Kunstverein. Under the title Art – Political Responsibility – Social Justice the program examines current socio-political issues. The program focuses on political conflict zones in Europe, diversity in the context of questioning and redefining concepts of identity, as well as social justice, colonialism, and imperialism.
The second Dialog, entitled Trust & Intransigence, will place a special emphasis on European conflict zones. It provides a platform for exchange between scholars and artists. With contributions by Saddam Jumaily (Artist Talk), Marita Muukkonen, Ivor Stodolsky (Conversation), Jasmina Cibic (Artist Talk), Alexandra Hammond (Performance), Ekaterina Degot (Statement), Vedran Dzihic (Lecture) and Anri Sala (Screening).
For the most recent schedule, please visit the website of the Center for Contemporary Art, University of Graz.
She gave it to me I got it from her is both a book and a choreography performed for five spectators at the time. By way of the voice and an intricate composition of gestures, Clara Amaral guides the spectator through the different chapters of the book. Developed and written by the artist herself, the publication focuses on the matrilineal passing down of reading and writing skills—from mother to daughter, generation upon generation. The narrative that unfolds traces Amaral’s family history and reveals a historical transition from illiteracy to the ability to read and write. Laying out this transformation in a poetic manner, Amaral gives insight into the power relations articulated by the presence and absence of the capacity to read and write and how this plays into the formation of identity, be it personal or collective. As such, the performative reading articulates the book anew as both a script, a performance, and an archive.
Language: English
Duration: 60 minutes
Price: 5 Euro (free for members)
Due to very limited capacity, it is required to reserve a seat by writing to office@grazerkunstverein.org
Clara Amaral (b. 1984, Portugal; lives in Amsterdam) is an artist working with text and performance. Her interdisciplinary artistic practice questions what it means to be a reader, to be a writer, aiming to expand existing modes of reading, writing, and publishing. Central to her practice is the investigation of publishing modalities and the performative aspect of writing and language, through an intersectional feminist approach. Her works have been presented in The Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Amaral is the initiator of the online publishing platform misted.cc.
Writer, choreographer and performer Clara Amaral; Graphic design Ronja Andersen and Karoline Swiezynski; Copy editor Isabelle Sully; Conceptualization and fabrication of objects Olga Micińska in dialogue with Clara Amaral; Publisher Kunstverein Publishing
She gave it to me I got it from her was supported by Mondriaan Fonds, Amsterdam; Veem House for Performance, Amsterdam; Members of Kunstverein, Amsterdam; Alkantara, Lisbon; Teatro do Bairro Alto, Lisbon
The presentation of She gave it to me I got it from her at Grazer Kunstverein is made possible with the support of Mondriaan Fonds, Amsterdam.
In Submission Submission (unplugged), Bryana Fritz takes on the role of an ‘amateur hagiographer’. The amateur being both a beginner and a lover; the hagiographer, as in the medieval literary genre of hagiography, the writing of saints’ lives. In a series of performative portraits, Fritz embodies the corporal, rhetorical, and performative strategies that medieval women saints used to subvert their restricted lives, deaths, and passions. Submitting her physical and digital body to holy echoes from the past, she dissects and harnesses the tools that give body. Submission Submission is a growing codex of performative portraits of medieval women saints. For each iteration of the performance, different saints are chosen to share the space. At Grazer Kunstverein, Fritz will perform her portraits of Christina of Bolsena, Hildegard of Bingen, Cathrine of Siena, and Joan of Arc.
Language: English
Duration: 30 minutes
Bryana Fritz (b. 1989, USA; lives in Brussels and Paris) is a choreographer, dancer, and writer. She works at the intersection between poetry and performance often in duet with the user interface of OS X. Her work is fed by a continued interest in medieval literature, fanfiction, media studies, and histories of illiteracy. She also collaborates with Henry Andersen under the moniker Slow Reading Club. As a performer, Fritz worked with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Xavier le Roy, Boris Charmatz, Michiel Vandevelde and Femke Gyselinck.
The presentation of Submission Submission (unplugged) at Grazer Kunstverein is made possible with the support of Flanders State of the Art.
