Press conference May 10, 2007
Schaurausch - Art in 50 Shop Windows
Thursday, May 10, 2007, 11.15 a.m.
Restaurant Tafelspitz im Hotel Schillerpark, Schillerplatz 1, 4020 Linz
Downtown pedestrians are invited to become flâneurs and embark on a fascinating journey of artistic discovery.
The First Linz09 Project
For Linz09, “Schaurausch - Viewing Spree” is a premiere in two respects. “On one hand, we’re able to whet people’s appetite right now for what’s to come in 2009 and to give the Capital of Culture initiative a high-profile public image. On the other hand, this exhibition by the OK is our first curated collaboration with a major cultural institution here in Linz,” explained Martin Heller.
Art in 50 shop windows constitutes Part 1 of “Art into the City!!”. This trilogy has been designed to provide opportunities to consider art from fresh perspectives and to show
Press photos:
www.ok-centrum.at in the "Press" sector
the extent to which the Capital of Culture year offers chances to change the way things are customarily done and to try out innovative link-ups and configurations.
The Exhibition
The shop window installations are accessible 24/7, whereby daytime and nighttime viewing each have special qualities all their own. Several spectacular large-scale projects installed on prominent store façades and in centrally located shopping centers anchor the exhibition and also do the very essential job of confronting passers-by with something way out of the ordinary and getting them in the right frame of mind for encounters with creative artworks. Strung between these high-profile elements like strands of pearls are the individual “Schaurausch - Viewing Spree” shops. More than 20 artists were invited to implement 50 projects. Most of them are new productions, many having been created expressly for Linz. The selection of the artists followed the OK’s guidelines that call for establishing a dialogue between regional creativity and what’s happening in the international art scene.
In the words of curators Paolo Bianchi and Martin Sturm: “We have very intentionally sought to establish links between consumer product aesthetics, retail shop window dressing and the world of concrete objects in order to make for a scintillating dialog between consumer culture and the art world. The ideology of consumerism is juxtaposed to a plea on behalf of sensuality. The artworks cast an illuminating light on the merchandise’s seductive charms. The utility value of things is taken to the point of absurdity, whereby the traffic here is in purely aesthetic likenesses. The artistic expression corresponds in many cases to the rapid impact of advertising, but then proceeds to take this to the extreme via minimalism and/or monumentality. This dramatization of shop windows provides a mise en scène for the artworks like actors on stage in a play. The shop window as artistic medium takes on a new level and quality of attention. The ideal of Modernism—the marriage of art and life—succeeds in the “Schaurausch - Viewing Spree” project with surprising ease.”
For three weeks, visitors to downtown Linz can morph from window shoppers to flâneurs and enjoy exhilarating viewing experiences. We’re sending local inhabitants, passers-by, consumers and tourists on a journey of artistic discovery. Embedded in the title of “Schaurausch - Viewing Spree” is the term aura that designates the charisma of a person, a place or a work of art. Assuming the position of viewer in front of these shop windows summons forth the aura of the objects behind them.
Cooperating Partners
50 businesses—from individual retailers to whole shopping centers—are putting their merchandise display spaces at the disposal of art for three weeks. A thrilling walk along an interesting boundary and a role-swapping process take place as merchants and curators discuss the differences between contemporary art and advertising. What’s more, sales girls become agents mediating the public’s encounters with art, and pedestrians are transformed into guests viewing an exhibition. Of course, the ultimate mission is to launch a sustainable process that endures beyond the event’s three-week run.
The Retail Sector
For the retailing community, this concept is a test run to see how presenting itself in a cultural context works in actual practice. Getting downtown merchants involved makes it possible for shoppers to partake of art “on the fly” as it were, and perhaps to whet their appetite for more.
For Erich Watzl, Linz’s commissioner of cultural affairs, this initiative satisfies three important cultural policymaking criteria:
- Culture and business carrying out a joint venture by forming a partnership of equals
- Art and culture being presented in the public sphere at locations at which one does not ordinarily encounter art, which opens up chances for people to come into contact with art
- Collaboration among one of the Province of Upper Austria’s leading cultural facilities (O.K), the downtown Linz business community, and Linz09.
The “Schaurausch – Viewing Spree” Exhibition Catalogue
A catalogue has been published in conjunction with the exhibition. It documents both the individual artworks as well as the locations at which they are being displayed (i.e. the individual shops). The catalogue can be purchased at all participating shops for 15 euros.
The Curators
Paolo Bianchi, born in 1960, is a free-lance exhibition organizer and guest editor of “Kunstforum International” magazine. He lives in Baden near Zurich, Switzerland.
Martin Sturm, born in 1957, is director of the O.K Center for Contemporary Art in Linz.
The artists and projects
Partners
OK Offenes Kulturhaus Oberösterreich
Direktor: Martin Sturm
www.ok-centrum.at
Projektleiter: Rainer Jessl
Linz 2009 Kulturhauptstadt Europas OrganisationsGmbH
Intendant: Martin Heller
www.linz09.at
Linzer City Ring
Management: Hildegard Weber
www.linzer-city.at
