Annual theme

Recasted Relations
Exhibit 2023

The last few years have been characterized by the search for a new way of dealing with the world and ourselves. The effort to search for ways out of the mechanisms of a neoliberal society, in which the idea of constant optimization and acceleration ­– the “natural laws of the Anthropocene” (F. Lyotard) – prevail and the strong individualization leads us into increasing self-alienation. This resulted in contemporary art in an intensified analysis of the anthropocentric and colonial conditions of society as well as a reflection on vulnerability (J. Butler) of people and the environment. The desire for a new sense of community with human but also non-human forms of life is more present than ever.

In 2023, the motto Recasted Relations stands as an umbrella term for exhibitions that, like concrete case studies, take on specific areas of everyday life. Whether it is the human need to sleep or the migration of plants: they are analyzed as examples of our way of life from a historical and political perspective. What is also striking in the confrontation, however, is the moment of care, through which the awareness of alternative ways of seeing and relating succeeds.

Starting in March, the exhibition Sleepy Politics brings into focus the fact that the sleeping body is regarded in neoliberal ideology as an inert antagonist of the otherwise hard-working body, even though people spend a third of their lives asleep. This highlights the extent to which the human need for sleep is dependent on social and economic accessions of waking life. In the exhibition curated by Francesca Romana Audretsch and Lotti Brockmann, on the other hand, sleep becomes an actor and is negotiated as an active arena of political negotiations and a practice of resistance. A space is created in which questions are raised about the emancipatory shaping of coexistence under the conditions of social, ecological and political crises.

As an exhibition, Bordering Plants investigates our social dealings with plants. The curators Carmen Lael Hines, Adam Hudec and Roberto Majano focus on the domestication and incubation of naturally growing flora in anthropocentric living arrangements and thus on the colonial process of their extraction. Starting from a historical perspective, plants are examined as objects, typologies, and taxonomies through the interconnection of the fields of contemporary art, critical theory, and architectural and design practice. Fundamental to this is also the broader emancipatory impetus formulated by Ros Gray and Shela Sheikh, and the call for a „recasted relation“: „plants are the most instrumentalised of all forms of life, degraded and overlooked – rethinking our relationship with them must be understood as part of a wider rethinking of our relationship with each other.”

Exhibit Galerie
Schillerplatz 3
1010 Vienna

Sleepy Politics: How to learn about conviviality and alternative life forms through sleep 
22.3.–21.5.2023, Opening: 21.3.2023, 18–22 h
An exhibition curated by Francesca Romana Audretsch and Lotti Brockmann with works by: Black Power Naps (Fannie Sosa & Navild Acosta), Mustafa Emin Büyükcoşkun & Osman Özarslan, Hannah Cooke, Emil Frederking & Lisa Starmans, Stella Geppert, Inside Job (Ula Lucińska & Michał Knychaus), Jannis Neumann, Cristina Díaz Moreno & Efrén García Grinda, Unstable Bodies (Christian Freude, Christina Jauernik, Johann Lurf, Jonathan Moser, Fabian Puttinger, Rüdiger Suppin), Anna Watzinger 

Bordering Plants 
10.11.2023 – February 24, Opening: 9.11.2023, 18–22 h
An exhibition curated by Carmen Lael Hines, Adam Hudec and Roberto Majano

Exhibit Studio
Schillerplatz 3
1010 Vienna

The Exhibit Studio presents four exhibitions in 2023, curated and organized by Exhibit Studio coordinators Christian Azzouni and Olga Shapovalova. The exhibition I can (not) handle this is on view until March 5, and the presentation Artists as Subculture – Clubculture opens on March 21:

I can (not) handle this 
20.1.–5.3.2023, Opening: 19.1.2023

Artists as Subculture – Clubculture 
22.3.–21.5.2023, Opening: 21.3.2023, 18–22 h

Exhibit Eschenbachgasse
Eschenbachgasse 11
1010 Vienna

The Exhibit Eschenbachgasse sees itself as a field of experimentation for an expanded teaching and research practice and brings exhibition making into view as a special artistic field of action. In 2023, the exhibition space will continue to be used by teachers and researchers of the Academy for their projects, including the discussion series On Painting or the continuation of the exhibition series Muslim*Contemporary. For current information, please see the overview under Exhibitions / Events.

Parcours Final Works 2023 

From 20.6. until 30.6.2023 final works will be presented in all Exhibit exhibition spaces. Opening, 20.6.2023, from 16 h