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Definite or indefinite or…? Debates on gender in art and politics 
Silvia Stoller 

Video

According to Dr Silvia Stoller, the fact that the faces are lacking expression is not only irritating, as the human bodies depicted do not have a defining feature, but the artist also confronts us with questions of human identity and their detectability, such as gender. This question central to gender theories, also arises in other contexts: How can gender be defined and expressed, how do we experience gender and what are the limits of determining and perceiving gender? When is it necessary to label gender, and in what ways is labelling and identification problematic? In this lecture, Stoller will show how Katherine Bradford’s art can be linked directly to current feminist gender debates. She will debate gender in art and politics and explore the question of performative gender identity.

Artists

Participating artists

Univ.-Doz. in DDr.in Silvia Stoller

*Bleiburg, Austria, lives in Vienna

is a philosopher and gender researcher. She teaches at the Universities of Vienna and Graz, where her teaching and research focuses include phenomenology, anthropology, contemporary philosophy, philosophy of animals (human-animal studies), philosophy of the body, existential philosophy (gender, age, pain, love, play, laughter) as well as masculinity studies and gender studies.

Selected publications: Existence — Difference — Construction. Phenomenology of Gender in Beauvoir, Irigaray and Butler: Munich: Wilhelm Fink 2010; ed. Simone de Beauvoir’s Philosophy of Age. Gender, Ethics, and Time. Berlin: De Gruyter 2014. ed. (with Susanne Hochreiter): Man — Men — Masculinities. Interdisciplinary Contributions from Masculinity Studies. Vienna: Praesens Verlag 2018.

More contributions

Diedrich Diederichsen
Vortrag 

Video

On the basis of his contribution to the publication, conceived against the backdrop of Poledna’s film produced in Los Angeles in the summer of 2024 especially for the exhibition at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, Diederichsen will discuss and present Mathias Poledna’s artistic career with references to music and art history as well as pop culture.

Diedrich Diederichsen

Karel Císař
Lecture 

Video

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. 

Karel Císař – Lecture

Mathias Poledna
Exhibition Tour 

Slide show

Mathias Poledna has created a complex, multi-layered body of work in which films, expansive installations and architectural interventions are in constant dialog with each other, where independent series of works, found objects and ephemeral materials all condense to form a singular artistic language. Central to his practice are questions of modernity, cultural memory and the visual imaginary in art and popular culture.

Ausstellungsrundgang Mathias Poledna

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… 

Performance Total Romance: Partial Repair Isabel Lewis, Dirk Bell with vocalist, performer and artist Rupert Enticknap and performer and pole dancer Yann Slattery