Beziehungsarbeit – Kunst und Institution

Artists are bound to the institutions in their field by an ambivalent relationship, and they are more aware than they have ever been of how their work is involved with the institutional framework of its presentation. At the intersection between the premises of institutional critique – which has developed step by step into a comprehensive method of artistic social contextualisation – and the different manifestations of site-specific art, numerous examples of works are to be found that adopt a close architectural, social, structural and processual relationships to the institutions of their presentation. Artistic approaches to the locations and systems of mediation have become all-inclusive, ranging from the development of model spaces via shifts in function and interventions in the operative systems, to the utilisation of institutional resources for economic, social or activist ends.

The project Beziehungsarbeit is dedicated to the diversity and intensity of these methods adopted by artists. The 150th anniversary of the Vienna Künstlerhaus, the oldest Austrian artists’ association, offers an appropriate occasion for this project.The starting point is the assertion that there is a symbiotic-constructive relationship between production and institution, and that this takes shape as ideal, appropriation, co-creation, critique, and rejection.

Artists: Georg Baselitz, Helke Bayrle, Martin Beck, Linda Bilda, Monica Bonvicini, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, Céline Condorelli & Gavin Wade, Josef Dabernig, Carola Dertnig, Heinrich Dunst, Maria Eichhorn, Robert Filliou, Andreas Fogarasi, Claire Fontaine, Andrea Fraser, Peter Friedl, Katharina Fritsch, Sandra Gamarra, Mario Garcia Torres, General Idea, Dan Graham, Guerrilla Girls, Hans Haacke, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Marlene Haring, Lise Harlev, Erwin Heerich, Christian Helbock, Nikolaus Hirsch & Philipp Misselwitz (in Kollaboration mit Judith Hopf, Raqs Media
Collective, Tobias Rehberger, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Anton Vidokle und Eyal Weizman), Candida Höfer, Emily Jacir, Leopold Kessler, Michael Kienzer, Per Kirkeby, Yves Klein, Matthias Klos, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Louise Lawler, Erik van Lieshout, Marko Lulic, Dorit Margreiter, Tom Marioni, François Morellet, Ivan Moudov, Christian Philipp Müller, Nils Norman, Brigitte Pamperl, Lia Perjovschi, Walter Pichler, Florian Pumhösl, Tobias Rehberger, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Stefan Römer, Ulrich Rückriem, Werner Ruhnau, Karin Sander, Thomas Schütte, Robert Smithson,Yuji Takeoka, Sofie Thorsen, Wolf Vostell, Franz Erhard Walther, Wochenklausur, Jun Yang, Heimo Zobernig