General Information

The HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark is one of the most innovative exhibition houses for contemporary art in Austria and the surrounding region. The outstanding modernist pavilion architecture from the early 1950s was built as one of the first white cubes in Austria. Over the years, outstanding artistic positions such as Cosey Fanny Tutti, Ulrike Oettinger, Rosemarie Trockel, Tom Burr, Adrian Piper, Julia Scher, Josef Bauer and Bruno Gironcoli were shown in thematic group exhibitions.

In conjunction with the Neue Galerie at the Landesmuseum Joanneum, the house was for decades the site of the legendary Three-Country Biennial Trigon, which was an essential platform for cultural exchange during the Cold War and thus established early links with numerous artists from the South-East European region, such as Marina Abramović/​Ulaj, Sanja Ivecović, Mangelos, Gianni Colombo, Luciano Fabro, Luigi Ontani.

In the 1980s, when there was a direct connection between the Graz and Cologne art scenes through Martin Kippenberger and Jörg Schlick, among others, the Pavillion also hosted, for example, a groundbreaking solo exhibition by Albert Oehlen and then later, in the early 2000s, the first Austrian institutional solo exhibition by Cosima von Bonin.

In 2013, the Kunstverein Medienturm, under the artistic direction of Sandro Droschl, finally took over the building, which had previously undergone a general renovation, in order to establish it as an independent institution under the name Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien. The sophisticated and comprehensive program realized in this period can be viewed here: www.km‑k.at.

Under the same leadership but an institutional reorganization, the new team is pleased to present the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark.

Today, as before, the exhibition house is dedicated to the presentation of contemporary, socially relevant art production in an international context, whereby the carefully presented art here should also consciously stand and speak for itself. At the same time, attention to local art production has a significant influence on the artistic program. Through these different perspectives, the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark positions itself as a progressive house that cannot think the international outside of the local context and vice versa. Through various formats such as solo and thematic group exhibitions, performances, and residencies, the curatorial team aims to respond directly to the diverse means of expression of today’s artistic production and to be an open place for the resonance of currently relevant discussions.

In doing so, the wonderful architecture and surrounding parkland provide a unique setting for such a program. Facing this physical space, the new website of the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark is set up as a diversely playable platform that reflects the different focal points and artistic productions and carries them to the outside. Following this step of opening up, it is a great concern of the institution to make contemporary art accessible to all members of society, so that admission to the exhibitions is free and a versatile mediation offer is available.
 

Come! into the open, friend!
–Friedrich Hölderlin, Der Gang aufs Land. An Landauer, 1800/01.

Exhibition 2021/2022:

Europe: Ancient Future

Jimmie Durham, Haris Epaminonda, Ira Goryainova, Renée Green, Franz Kapfer, Barbara Kapusta, Jutta Koether, Oliver Laric, Shahryar Nashat, Steven Parrino, Franco Vaccari, James Welling, Franz West

23.4.–15.8.2021

Everyone talks about (and far too often against) Europe, and even a common Europe is only slowly getting off the ground. The particular interests of the nation states, bureaucracy and the economy are too deeply entrenched, reflecting the attachment of many to what is immediately familiar. The future, however, can only lie in an open, cosmopolitan approach, with a good relationship between each individual and the local as well as the international community. This critical balance of the individual to the group was already outlined by ancient Greece in order to strengthen democracy on the basis of individual and general freedoms and responsibilities. From a history conceived into the future, the extensive project Europe: Ancient Future formulates current contributions to an urgently needed discussion on egality in difference, in order to advance a culturally and therein politically conceived Europe.

Domestic Drama

Larry Achiampong, Ayo Akingbade, Aram Bartholl, Camille Blatrix, Oscar Enberg, Vera Frenkel, Nigel Gavus & İlkin Beste Çırak, Antony Gormley, Mona Hatoum, Kaarel Kurismaa, Nicola L., Bertrand Lavier, Olu Ogunnaike, Laura Põld, Bruno Zhu

14.12.2021–20.2.2022

In our immediate present determined by the ongoing Corona pandemic, this condition has become clearer than ever — the ​“home” has been transformed from a refuge to a place of permanent production, where the borders between the private and the world of work have disappeared and where the conflicts that result from this, which formerly were enacted outside, are now negotiated in the interior of our private realms.

Domestic Drama represents an attempt to understand everyday objects not as tools and objects for use, but as representatives of all of these conflicts, and of wishes and desires that shape our identities. In contrast to a purely educational and analytic approach to the theme, this exhibition intends to use direct and diverse aesthetic and conceptual strategies to create a physical and psychological space in which the processes and mechanisms described above can be experienced.

Stano Filko

A Retrospective

19.3.–5.6.2022

Opening: 18.3.2022, 15:00–21:00 h

Intervention 3 – 5 p.m.
Breathing: The Celebration of Air / Dýchanie: oslava vzduchu, 1970

With support of the Slovak National Gallery and the Linea Collection, Bratislava

With generous loans by the Slovak National Gallery and the Linea Collection in Bratislava, the HALLE FÜRKUNST Steiermark is taking a fresh look at the enduring influential oeuvre of the artist Stano Filko. The exhibition sheds light on the significance of this outstanding great and his progressive plan for society in today’s — less visionary — times.

Performance 2021/2022: 

Give Rise To Armin Lorenz Gerold

20.–21.8.2021

Performance

Armin Lorenz Gerold (*1981 Graz, lives in Berlin) is one of the most exciting contemporary artists working at the interface of sound and visual art. For the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, he is producing a performative work especially for the occasion, which will be performed live in the institution’s main space and simultaneously released via a local radio station, so that the piece will radiate beyond the architectural boundaries of the building and the city.

Give Rise To Colin Self

Tip the Ivy

25.–26.2.2022

Performance

Co-commission: Performance Space, New York

25.2., 7 pm & 26.2., 7 pm
Registration: info@​halle-​fuer-​kunst.​at

With Dia Dear, Bully Fae Collins, Colin Self, Mica Sigourney, Vera de Vienne, Geo Wyeth

HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark is pleased to present, together with the Performance Space, New York, the experimental opera Tip the Ivy (2022) by the American non-binary composer and artist Colin Self (b. 1987 in Aloha, USA). Situated between performance, participation, research, and activism, Self always reacts to the local and social conditions of the places where his works are created. Tip the Ivy is thus not only a performative piece of theater, but also a research project that addresses the coding of information through a queer perspective. 

In 2021 Colin Self was artist-in-residence at HALLE FÜR KUNST. Tip the Ivy was initiated by HALLE FÜR KUNSTSteiermark and co-commissioned by Performance Space, New York. The performance will be presented in May 2022 at Performance Space.