piercing through
A group exhibition by DAS WEISSE HAUS in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna as part of the program Curators’ Agenda.
Group Exhibition with Lotti Brockmann, Clemens Grömmer, Sepideh Hassani, Natalia del Mar Kašik, Allegra Kortlang, Hanna Kučera, Jana Van Brussel, Nežka Zamar
Curated by Ahmad Darkhabani, João Victor Dias, and Trinity Njume-Ebong
Mentorship, Supervision, and Curatorial Direction: Anamarija Batista
Project assistance: Elena Blum
The exhibition focuses on artistic interventions taken by artists to navigate through the contemporary economies of success. Personal narratives, ways of execution, the anxiety of becoming irrelevant, the role of the body, the authority of value, hierarchy, performative efficiency, and cutting across the edge of failure, along with many other factors, define and shape the artistic practice of today. Spanning various artistic media and conceptual frameworks, the exhibition becomes a site to investigate the efforts that stand behind artistic work, while exposing other forces used to measure achievement, such as institutional recognition and social validation.
piercing through presents a conceptual interpretation of success by juxtaposing works by Natalia del Mar Kašik and Jana Van Brussel, creating a space to contemplate success as an amorphous domain and the anxious desire to be absorbed into it. The narrative then turns to works by Sepideh Hassani and Lotti Brockmann, marking the moment at which personal relations and political affairs are translated into artistic materials and become subjects of critical inquiry, acquiring relevance within the discourse of culture and contemporary art. Addressing the tension between material objects and their inscription within conventional social interpretations of success, Hanna Kučera’s act examines the performative professionalism required to become part of today’s market of success. At the same time, Nežka Zamar subverts this very model through a form of trade that itself becomes an artwork, one that could be sold for an exceptionally high financial value. Questioning the historical foundations of the art market and its hierarchies, Clemens Grömmer displaces his painting practice from the gallery space into the public sphere, confronting the political dimensions of everyday life. Returning to the conceptual understanding of success, Allegra Kortlang simultaneously closes and reopens the exhibition with a dystopian video work that reflects on the destruction wrought by the obsession with an endless pursuit of success.
Ultimately, the exhibition asks what it means to stand on the edge between failure and success, and what it takes to pierce through all the way to the other side.
This exhibition presents the finalization of the intensive Curators' Agenda: VIENNA 2025 residency program. It is realized in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and under the supervision of curator and researcher Anamarija Batista. The exhibition is part of the Special Projects & Independent Spaces programof VIENNA ART WEEK 2025.
Launched in 2015 by the Vienna-based association BLOCKFREI, Curators' Agenda is an annual residency that offers international curators the opportunity to expand their curatorial knowledge and engage with the Viennese art scene for eight weeks. In January 2024, BLOCKFREI Collective (Nevena Janković, Eva Kovač, and Jana Dolečki) assumed the leadership of DAS WEISSE HAUS, integrating this residency project under the umbrella of DAS WEISSE HAUS.