Performance Total Romance: Partial Repair
Isabel Lewis, Dirk Bell with vocalist, performer and artist Rupert Enticknap and performer and pole dancer Yann Slattery
Video
The performance Total Romance: Partial Repair is the centerpiece of Isabel Lewis and Dirk Bell’s joint exhibition Ever/Repair at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, and is performed by four performers. In collaboration with the two artists Lewis and Bell, the vocalist, performer and artist Rupert Enticknap and performer and pole dancer Yann Slattery alter the newly adapted piece Maskarade (1970) by Sylvia Wynter in relation to the in-situ exhibition, by playing and interacting with it.
Artists
Participating artists
Dirk Bell
Solo (a.o.): Galerie Wedding (2022, with Isabel Lewis), BQ, Berlin (2022, 2016), QBBQ’s, Berlin (2019), Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York (2016), The Fireplace Project, New York (2015), SVIT, Prague (2013), Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2011), The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2011), Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2009); Shows (a.o.): Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2023), Kewenig, Berlin (2022), Bundeskunsthalle Bonn (2022), BravinLee Programs, New York (2021), 1969 Gallery, New York (2021), Halle am Berghain, Berlin (2020), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2020), Sexauer Gallery, Berlin (2017), Halle für Kunst Lüneburg (2017), Haus Mödrath – Räume für Kunst, Kerpen (2017), Kunsthalle Bremerhaven (2016), Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (NBK) (2015), Witte de With Centrum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Rotterdam (2014), GAK Bremen (2013), Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2011), Drawing Room, London (2010), Chelsea Art Museum, New York (2009)
Isabel Lewis
Solo (a.o.): Galerie Wedding (2022, with Dirk Bell), Belvedere 21, Vienna (2021), Kunsthalle Zürich (2020), Gropius Bau, Berlin (2019), dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel (2013), MoMA PS1, New York (2010), New Museum, New York (2009); Shows (a.o.): Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2023), 58. Biennale di Venezia (2019), 14th Sharjah Biennale (2019), Klöntal Triennale, Kunsthaus Glarus (2017) Tate Modern, London (2017), Kunsthalle Frankfurt (2017), Mofo, Contemporary Arts Tasmania, Hobart (2017), McaM Shanghai (2016), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2016), Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (2016), Dia Art Foundation, New York (2016), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2015), Gothenburg Biennial of Art (2015), Liverpool Biennale (2014), Kunsthalle Basel (2014), PS122, New York (2010)
Rupert Enticknap
Rupert Enticknap (UK) is a Berlin based vocalist, performer and artist. Their trans-disciplinary practice oscillates between and within opera, contemporary musics, dance and installations. They work mostly in collaboration with other artists and institutions. His approach to voice is highly influenced by notions of the choreographic, approaching music-making primarily as a bodily practice and working through the body to find non-linear paths of inquiry and performativity. Rupert’s own work is currently occupied with notions of failure, masculinities, the body as archive and English folk dance.
Yann Slattery
Yann Slattery (they/them/he/him) living and working in Basel is an artist and performer working in the intersections of performance, fashion & clothing and performative multimedia installation. Their praxis often moves in in-between spaces and circles around failure – success, tragedy/comedy, (ir)relevancies, intimacies and un-forgetting. Their recent interest lies in transforming spaces of intimacies of a strip club into their work, where boundaries of watchers and watched ones get blurry.
In their latest piece ‚PLAYBOIS‘ together with Yevheniya Kravets they use queer fiction and game structures with the interest of mocking and tricking power dynamics. Which has been shown in Humbug Basel, Performative Screenings Vienna and Zentralwäscherei Zurich. Together with Catol Teixeira, Thilda Bourqui and Helena M. Kabwe they have been invited to Perrrformat Zurich and created a one time t4t4t4t Tragic Horror-Comedy ‚Roses4S3x‘.
As a performer they’ve worked with Isabel Lewis at Kunsthalle Zürich for the Scalable Skeletal Escalator exhibition and for the Kantine in Sophiensaele, Nils Amadeus Lange, Monster Chetdwyd and Young boys dancing group.
More contributions
Hans-Christian Dany: Oswald Wieners Überlegungen zum Spannungsfeld von Dandyism, Paranoia und KI, als frühe Ahnung der gegenwärtigen Probleme der großen Sprachmodelle mit Autophagie, Halluzinationen und dem Habsburg-Effekt
Video
As part of the exhibition A. I. O., Hans-Christian Dany approaches Oswald Wiener’s work from a contemporary perspective. Taking Die Verbesserung von Mitteleuropa, ein roman (The Improvement of Central Europe, a novel) as his starting point, he connects Wiener’s reflections on dandyism, paranoia, and artificial intelligence with today’s experiences with generative AI, and explores the unique resonances that Wiener’s speculative thinking continues to evoke in the present.
Exhibition Tour
A.rtificial I.ntrospection O.
Video
A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. explores the conditions of thinking, perception, and consciousness at the intersection of cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and self-observation, bringing Oswald Wiener’s ideas into dialogue with artistic positions from different generations.
Michael Krebber talks to Sandro Droschl
Video
As part of the exhibition A.rtificial I.ntrospection O., Michael Krebber speaks with Sandro Droschl about his artistic practice and his engagement with the writings and conceptual models of Oswald Wiener.
Nicola Cipani, Thomas Eder
On Oswald Wiener’s « die verbesserung von mitteleuropa, roman »
Video
As part of the accompanying program for the exhibition A. I. O., the two renowned Oswald Wiener experts Nicola Cipani and Thomas Eder will discuss Die Verbesserung von Mitteleuropa (1969).
A.rtificial I.ntrospection O.
Exhibition Tour
Slide show
The exhibition A.rtificial I.ntrospection O. (A.I.O.) explores questions of thought, perception, and subjectivity at the intersection of introspection, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence. Its point of departure is the work of the Austrian writer, cognitive psychologist, and cybernetician Oswald Wiener (1935 – 2021), whose genuine thinking since the 1950s critically navigated between these fields while systematically resisting institutional appropriation.
Dr. Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer
Susanne Wenger’s painting between Africa and Europe
Video
In her lecture, art historian and curator Brigitte Borchhardt-Birbaumer examines Susanne Wenger’s work as a transcultural Gesamtkunstwerk that bridges European modernism and Yorùbá ritual practice, creating a new sacred aesthetic that merges art, ritual, and cultural boundaries.
Kathy Rae Huffman
FROM CYBERFEMINISM
UNTIL NOW
Video
Kathy Rae Huffman’s lecture traces the evolution of cyberfeminism since the 1990s: it connected women in the digital sphere, challenged existing power structures, and presented examples — from VNS Matrix to contemporary digital activism — that highlight critiques of platform corporations, AI cultures, and global inequalities.
Xol Meissner
Concert
Video
New York-based artist Xol Meissner — the alter ego of composer Mauro Hertig — has transformed the HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark into a hypnotic soundscape of extraordinary intensity with his haunting music, which oscillates between contemporary classical and avant-garde rock.