Florian Bieber
Society in motion? Protest movements in Serbia
Video
Since November 2024, there have been almost daily protests in Serbia against corruption, for an independent judiciary and functioning institutions. This was triggered by the collapse of a poorly built station canopy in Novi Sad, in which 16 people died and many were injured. On March 15, 2025, the protests reached their peak with over 300,000 participants in Belgrade. The movement is supported by students, teachers and other civil society actors. The reactions of Western countries and the EU have so far been rather restrained for geopolitical and economic reasons. In his lecture, Prof. Dr. Florian Bieber explained that the authoritarian structures in Serbia can still be traced back to Milošević’s rule and were further consolidated under President Vučić. He placed the protests in a historical context and emphasized the authoritarian structures under Vučić, who undermines democratic processes by controlling the media and being close to Russia and China.
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Prof. Dr. Florian Bieber
is a political scientist and contemporary historian with a research focus on contemporary history and the political systems of Southeast Europe, in particular democratization, European integration and nationalism. Bieber studied history and political science at Trinity College (USA), the University of Vienna and the Central European University in Budapest. After working at the European Center for Minority Issues in Sarajevo and Belgrade and as a Lecturer in Eastern European Politics at the University of Kent, he has been a professor at the University of Graz since 2010 and heads the Center for Southeast European Studies. He has been a visiting professor at Cornell University, New York, the Central European University, Budapest, and the Universities of Bologna, Sarajevo, and Belgrade, as well as currently at the College of Europe in Tirana.
He also coordinated the Balkans in Europe Advisory Group (BiPEAG). His recent publications include Pulverfass Balkan (Ch.Links 2023), Debating Nationalism (Bloomsbury 2020), and The Rise of Authoritarianism in the Western Balkans (Palgrave 2020).
More contributions
Vanessa Joan Müller, Evelyn Plaschg
Conversation
Video
The book presentation accompanying Evelyn Plaschg’s exhibition Viscous City features a conversation between Vanessa Joan Müller, Sandro Droschl, and the artist herself. Müller’s essay Ansichten des Unbestimmten (Views of the Indefinite) describes Plaschg’s painting as a poetic-analytical reflection on the body, pictorial space, and urban experience, inviting an in-depth exchange on image, text, and perception.
Viscous City: Evelyn Plaschg, Vanessa Joan Müller Evelyn Plaschg
Concert
Video
The video shows an excerpt from Evelyn Plaschg’s concert, which she presented as part of her exhibition Viscous City at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark. The artist’s sound performance enters into dialogue with her paintings on display.
Evelyn Plaschg concert Exhibition Tour
Louise Giovanelli: A Song of Ascents
Video
In her exhibition, A Song of Ascents, Louise Giovanelli explores the expansion of consciousness through spirituality and sensuality. Her colorful, hyperrealistic paintings blend classical techniques with fantastical motifs to depict emotional experiences in hedonistic scenes from theaters and working-class clubs.
Exhibition Tour Louise Giovanelli Exhibition Tour
Evelyn Plaschg: Viscous City
Video
The exhibition Viscous City shows around twenty-five works by Evelyn Plaschg and provides a comprehensive insight into her painting practice, which moves between figuration and abstraction.
Exhibition Tour Evelyn Plaschg Stefan Albl
The Renaissance of Sensuality. Titian around 1520
Video
In his lecture, Dr. Stefan Albl discusses Titian’s art and its influence on the development of Renaissance painting, drawing parallels with the work of the artist Louise Giovanelli.
Stefan Albl The Renaissance of Sensuality. Titian around 1520 Evelyn Plaschg
Viscous City
Slide show
Evelyn Plaschg combines sophisticated technique and her own idiosyncratic imagery to produce a kind of painting that is figurative in ways that transcend all standard approaches.
Viscous City Louise Giovanelli
A Song of Ascents
Slide show
Louise Giovanelli paints striking hypnotic works that emit light both on a visual and metaphorical level. Her works often show mysterious objects, such as a closed curtain, a glimmering shock of hair, or the reflecting surface of a cocktail glass. There are also human figures, often women, seemingly caught in moments between awe and desperation, or about to cross over a border of experience and knowledge.
A Song of Ascents Evelyn Plaschg
Artist Talk
Video
Together, artist Evelyn Plaschg and curator Jan Tappe will speak about the process of painting, shifts within the artist’s practice, the role of photography as a point of departure, the presence of the body in the image, and a growing interest in urban spaces and infrastructures.
Evelyn Plaschg