Cyphers of transcendence Christian Höller — HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark

Lecture

Photo: © Sabine Maierhofe; Österreichisches Filmmuseum, Vienna

Christian Höller’s interest in Stano Filko developed through his interest in the project White Space in White Space, which was developed by Filko over several years in collaboration together with Miloš Laky and Ján Zavarský. White Space in White Space was realized in different versions as an installation. The first, legendary realisation took place on 18 February 1974 only for a few hours, away from the public eye at Dům umění (House of Art), Brno, and essentially consisted of an attempt to dissolve the exhibition space into a transcendental white. Christian Höller, who co-edited an extensive publication on the project, devotes his lecture to the central concept of Transcendency, which reveals the artist’s metaphysical interest in supersensible versions of reality/s and subject constructions. In this context, Filko has worked with the idea of transcendence in almost all facets of his work in his broad medial approach on the side of art production. Thus, various arguments can be found as to why a possible reading of almost the entire work can be developed on the basis of this concept.

Artists

Participating artists

Christian Höller is a freelance author, translator, as well as editor and co-publisher of the magazine springerin – Hefte für Gegenwartskunst, Vienna. Höller teaches at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and was a visiting professor at the École supérieure des beaux-arts in Geneva. He has been publishing in the fields of art and cultural theory since the 1990s, including in the magazines Texte zur Kunst, Spex, and springerin. He also frequently appears as a curator in the fields of film and music for various institutions and festivals, including mumok – Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz; Kunstverein Medienturm / steirischer herbst, Graz; and Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. Höller is author and (co-)editor of various publications, such as Kontakt. The Art Collection of Erste Group and ERSTE Foundation (2017); L’Internationale: Post-War Avant-Gardes Between 1957 and 1986 (2012); Time Action Vision: Conversations in Cultural Studies, Theory, and Activism (2010); and Techno-Visionen (2005). Most recently, he worked with Cathrin Rhomberg and Daniel Grūn on the publication White Space in White Space. Stano Filko, Miloš Laky, Ján Zavarskay´ (2021).