Karel Císař
Lecture
Video
Karel Císař is a philosopher, curator, and art theorist who understands modernity not as a temporal epoch that occurred between the pre-modern and the post-modern, but rather as an idea or project. As a result, he does not consider modernity as a historical entity but as an approach and an unfulfilled possibility in our relationship to the present, which has manifested and articulated itself in various sectors, branches, and disciplines of every period. Based on this understanding, Císař negotiates theories of modernism in his texts on contemporary art as well as on Mathias Poledna’s work.
Karel Císař and Mathias Poledna collaborated on the exhibitions Memories of the Future at Vaclav Spala Gallery in Prague (2009) and Figures and Prefigurations at City Gallery Prague (2013), both curated by Císař. For more than a decade, they have been in constant exchange.
In this lecture, Císař will explore Mathias Poledna’s career and artistic practice against the backdrop of the current exhibition, which can also be understood as a kind of retrospective.
Exhibition Page
Artists
Participating artists
Karel Císař
is professor and chair of the Department of Theory and History of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague. He studied philosophy at Charles University in Prague (PhD, 2006) and at the University of Geneva. He has written articles for Camera Austria and Texte für Kunst as well as for numerous anthologies, most recently for Abstraction & Economy. Myths of Growth (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024), edited by Eva Maria Stadler and Jenni Tischer.
Curated exhibitions: Lucy McKenzie & Atelier E.B, Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (2022), Sam Lewitt & Cheyney Thompson. Grids. Gradients. Drunken Walks, Brno House of Arts (2017), Christopher Williams. For Example: Dix-Huit Leçons Sur La Société Industrielle (Revision 14), with M. Škoda, House of Art, České Budějovice (2011).
Mathias Poledna
Solo Exhibitions (Selection): Galerie Buchholz, Cologne (2022), Galerie Buchholz, New York (2020), The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2014), The Art Institute of Chicago (2014), 55. Bienniale di Venezia, Austrian Pavilion (2013), Secession, Vienna (2013), Galerie Buchholz, Berlin (2012), Raven Row
(2011), Portikus, Frankfurt am Main (2010), Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (2010), New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2009), Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn (2009), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2007), Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2006), Galerie Buchholz, Cologne (2006), Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles (2005), Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (2004), Mumok – Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig Vienna (2003), Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles (2002), Grazer Kunstverein (2001).
Group Exhibitions (Selection): Haubrok Foundation (2023), Made in L.A. Biennial, Hammer Museum / Huntington Museum, Los Angeles (2021), Mumok – Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig Vienna (2021), Kunsthalle Bern (2020), Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2019), Liverpool Biennial (2018), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2018), Museum der Moderne, Salzburg (2017), Kunstverein Hamburg (2016), Sydney Biennial (2014), Busan Biennial (2012), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2012),Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville (2008), Haubrok Foundation (2011), Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2010), Galerie Václava Spály, Prag (2009), Yokohama Triennale (2008), MOCA / The Geffen Contemporary, Los Angeles (2008), Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2007), Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006), Haus der Kunst, Munich (2005), Generali Foundation, Vienna (2005), Berlin Biennale, Kunstwerke Berlin (2004), Frankfurter Kunstverein (2003).
More contributions
Exhibition Tour
Diego Bianchi: Errores Irreales
Video
Diego Bianchi’s immersive sculptural installations reinterpret the concepts of sculpture and of the torso, taking seriously the sensitivity and distress of the human body as subjected to manifold pressures, and expanding and updating its forms of expression.
Exhibition Tour Diego Bianchi Exhibition Tour
Celina Eceiza: Ofrenda
Video
A metabolic force governs the growth of Celina Eceiza’s work, which involves textile collages, sculptures, paintings and drawings — both tiny and colossal in scale — as laborious as they are elementary. The artist combines handcrafted textile techniques and processes such as patchwork, found object collages and, more recently, chalk pastels, which give her images a new sense of fluidity.
Ausstellungsrundgang Celina Eceiza Annemarie Arzberger
dreamed awake
Slide show
For HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark the artist has developed her first own performative presentation, with a setting for her puppets with three scenes set in an imaginary spaceship, an exhibition, and the spaces that the scenes depict: the Schlouflaboar, the Houloudecks, and the Space Grotto Disco. The piece is a combination of physical theater and puppetry, performed by the artist together with her sister Katharina Arzberger and accompanied by musical interludes arranged by Manuel Obriejtan.
Slide Show Annemarie Arzberger Diego Bianchi
Errores Irreales
Slide show
Diego Bianchi (*1969 Buenos Aires, lives in Buenos Aires) is considered one of Argentina’s leading artists and has, in particular, updated the concept of sculpture. For his installative and performative exhibition Errores Irreales at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Bianchi has assembled a selection of his sculptures that play with the concept of the body.
Slide show Diego Bianchi Diego Bianchi
Errores Irreales
Performance
Slide show
Errores Irreales is only truly activated by the performance staged by Diego Bianchi himself in order to complete his theatrical installation, which takes physicality and its limits to a new level.
Diego Bianchi, Performance Celina Eceiza
Ofrenda
Slide show
Ofrenda [Offering] presents a way of inhabiting a space as if the architecture were a body, breathing erratically, changing states as you pass from one room to the next. The rigidity of the building collapses as the walls are draped in thousands of metres of fabric joined together through the collective and timeless action of sewing, until they form a single smooth surface, sensitive to the slightest change.
Slide show Celina Eceiza Abaseh Mirvali
Artistic Director, viennacontemporary
Video
The conversation between Abaseh Mirvali, director of viennacontemporary, and Sandro Droschl spans Diego Bianchi’s current exhibition and Celina Eceiza’s work in the context of Argentine art history to Mirvali’s many years of expertise and her international career. At the same time, her central role in the dynamic and innovative viennacontemporary 2025 was highlighted.
Abaseh Mirvali Talk Morning Séance
alias Simone Borghi
Video
Italian composer and sound artist Simone Borghi, alias Morning Séance, expands Celina Eceiza’s “soft museum” in her exhibition Ofrenda at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark with his atmospheric, constantly changing music, using his musical performance to enable visitors to experience physicality, space, and perception in new ways.
Morning Séance alias Simone Borghi