Opening and book presentation:18 June 2015, 19.00

Exhibition duration: 19June –25 July 2015

Artists: Julia Amelie, Manuel Beck & Jeremias Altmann, Christina Beller, Marie-Anna Christine, Maria Cozma, Sebastian Gärtner, Maria Grün & Max Berner, Christiane Heidrich, Sebastian Kraner, Nika Kupyrova, Rick Lins, Johanna Odersky, Rick Reuther, Antonia Rippel-Stefanska, Anna Sophia Rußmann, Janine Schranz, Bastian Schwind, Jakob Zacharias Steiner, Dorothea Trappel, Gianna Virginia, Marit Wolters, Hui Ye

Curator: Franz Thalmair

The book as an "art gallery"

The starting point for the project Re-is the medium of the artist book that does not function as the documentation of an exhibitionbut itself becomes the "gallery". Only after the publication of the artist bookRe-does the eponymous exhibition take place in the Kunstraum Niederoesterreich. Because this show happens after the publication, it is not planned as a normal group exhibition in which the works designed for the book can be seen. Rather, in a spatial installative form, the exhibition presents the contributions to the book by the artists involved. In the Kunstraum Niederoesterreich, the principle of iteration is transferred from the book format to the exhibition format.With installations, photographs, videos, objects and performative and literary means, the exhibition Re-is ultimately conceived less as an art exhibition than as a special form of book presentation. Within this field of tension more than 20 artists experiment with theintersectionbetween the three-dimensional exhibition space and the two-dimensionality of the "art gallery" of the book. The artist book becomesa form of publication that is itself shaped and filled with content by artists and accordingly is an artistic object.

The artistic process of reiteration

From appropriation to copy, from loop to remake, from sample to quote –it is impossible to imagine current art production without the principle of reiteration. Working methods that use repetitive moments are omnipresent and deeply anchored in artistic processes. However, despite the sameness inscribed in it, reiteration contradictory –it is both a linking as well as a separating element of creative processes; it gives rise to boredom as well as ecstasy, it stays on the same spot but nevertheless goes forward.

The artists book Re- and the eponymous exhibition in the Kunstraum Niederoesterreich get to the bottom of this phenomenon. The multi-faceted types of reiteration are here not just the essential starting point but are also made visible as an artistic process. Reiteration is the connecting element in the contributions to the publication, which is to be encountered in content, form and/or at the material level. Some of the work collected in the book is based on existing works that the artists have translated into the book format and which have been rescaled for this. Another part of the book pages were specifically designed for the publicationRe-and feeds off the interests of thepeople involved. Other contributions, on the other hand, work exclusively within the formal aesthetic preconditions of the publication and are thereby dedicated to questions that are inherent in the project and in art.

The cooperation

The project Re-was developed together with students at the University of Applied Art Vienna as part of the seminar Same Same But Different(TransArts –Transdisciplinary Art Department) under Franz Thalmair. Alongside participants from the TransArts Department, Re-includes contributions from the field of language art, transmedia art and photography.

Bibliographical information:

Franz Thalmair (ed.), Re-, Berlin: Revolver Publishing, 2015; published by the University of Applied Art Vienna, 96 pages, 224 x 272 mm, thread-bound, offset print with articles byGerald Bast, Christian Höller, Christiane Krejs