"[O]ne should learn the art of recognizing, from an engaged subjective position, elements which are gere, in our space, but whose time is the emancipated future, ..." (1)

On this evening the extensive catalogue for the exhibition “… Was ist Kunst? … Resuming Fragmented Histories” (Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Nuremberg) will be presented. With texts by Sandro Droschl, Christian Egger and Marina Gržinić, Antonia Majača and Suzana Milevska as well as many exhibition and work views.

The project represented an attempt to facilitate the renegotiation of the question "What is art?" – as posed in the eponymous performance series by Raša Todosijević, with the artist having represented Serbia at the Venice Biennale 2011 – in a new exhibition context at Künstlerhaus KM–, Halle für Kunst & Medien. It was not to approach this important existing work with a retrospective gaze, but rather to focus on this pertinent question that has long remained unanswered, despite being posed to the point of exhaustion.
The professor, artist, and author represented in last year’s show of the same name, Marina Gržinić, will give a lecture titled, “Tell Me Who is the Freak Here? Paranoia, Disgust, Terror,” based on her catalogue essay, “1977 to 1984. A Time Period Comes Alive Again—Only Differently.” The lecture also corresponds to the theme of the current exhibition, “ordinary freaks – The Principle of Coolness in Pop Culture, Theater, and Museum.” In it, Marina Gržinić explores the validity of erstwhile philosophical ideas and artistic practices, as well as lasting theoretical influences on her own work.

(1) Slavoj Žižek, The Year of Dreaming Dangerously (London: Verso, 2012), p. 128.