Mathias Poledna — HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark

Mathias Poledna has produced a complex, multi-layered body of work in which films, expansive installations and architectural interventions are engaged in an ongoing dialogue with one another, and with other bodies of work, found works of art, objects and ephemeral materials – and are, in this way, condensed to a singular artistic idiom. Central to his practice are questions of modernity, cultural memory and the visual imaginary in art and popular culture. For his exhibition at HALLE FÜR KUNST, Mathias Poledna will produce a new film work which will be the center of an installation sequence within this architectural framework that extends through all galleries of the institution, proposing new contexts for the reflection on Poledna’s work.

Opening: 20.9.2024, 6 pm

Views

Mathias Poledna, *A Village by the Sea*, 2011
35mm-film, b/w, 5:40 min.

Text

His internationally renowned work reflects historicity against the backdrop of contemporary experiences and explores the history of specific cultural phenomena by means of staging and the appropriation of emblematic images. Research, analysis, and working with archives play a critical role in Poledna’s artistic practice. Although invariably newly produced – frequently with specialized collaborators – they often create the impression of having been found as they are, provoking a complex tension between their visuality and the critical and cultural implications that inform them. Poledna assembles films, autonomous pictorial works, and found objects to rigorously designed spatial constellations that evoke collective memory as well as the history of exhibiting itself.

The consideration of historical continuities and ruptures is also a consistent feature of programming at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, not least motivated by the late-modernist architecture of the building and it’s features as they have remained or been adapted over time. For his exhibition, Mathias Poledna will produce a new film work which will be the center of an installation sequence within this architectural framework that extends through all galleries of the institution, proposing new contexts for the reflection on Poledna’s work.

The exhibition project is accompanied by a program of events and education.

Curator: Sandro Droschl

Artists

Participating artists

Solo (u.a.): Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin/New York (2022, 2020, 2017, 2015, 2012, 2007, 2006), Renaissance Society, Chicago (2014), Art Institute of Chicago (2014), 55. Bienniale di Venezia (2013), Secession, Vienna (2013), Delphi Filmplast, Berlin (2012), Portikus, Frankfurt am Main (2010), Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna (2010, 2004), New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2009), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2007), Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2006), Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam (2006), Richard Telles Fine Art, Los Angeles (2005, 2002), Mumok, Vienna (2003), Grazer Kunstverein, Graz (2001); Shows (u.a.): Made in L.A., Biennial, Hammer Museum/Huntington Museum, Los Angeles (2021), mumok – Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna (2021), Kunsthalle Bern (2020), Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2019), Liverpool Biennial (2018), Sydney Biennial (2014), Busan Biennial (2012), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2012), Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2010), Yokohama Triennale (2008), The Geffen Contemporary, MOCA, Los Angeles (2008), Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006), Haus der Kunst, Munich (2005), Berlin Biennale (2003)