trigon 67/17 – ambiente nuovo / post environment

trigon 67/17 – ambiente nuovo / post environment
23.09.2017 — 23.11.2017

artists: Micol Assaël, Rosa Barba, Ludovica Carbotta, Lara Favaretto, Tina Frank / Peter Rehberg, Max Frey, Tina Gverović, Flaka Haliti, Clemens Hollerer, Sonia Leimer, Tobias 
Putrih, Hans Schabus, Esther Stocker, Jelena Trivić, Markus Wilfling
Marc Adrian, Mario Ceroli, Gianni Colombo, Luciano Fabro, Roland Goeschl, Jaki Jože Horvat, Enzo Mari, Oswald Oberhuber, Josef Pillhofer, Rudolf Pointner, Vjenceslav Richter, Miroslav Šutej, Jorrit Tornquist, Drago Tršar, Giuseppe Uncini

curators: Jürgen Dehm, Sandro Droschl

Fifty years ago trigon 67, the seminal exhibition presented in and around Künstlerhaus Graz, was met with widespread public outrage and a heated debate of its new exhibition format. The genre-bending examination of space and the cuttingedge exhibition display, brought together a group of international artists, architects and designers, engaging with questions of art and space across various media.

The show, titled ambiente / environment was the first thematic version of the trination biennial trigon (founded in Graz in 1963), featuring contemporary art from Austria, Italy, and former Yugoslavia. In this year’s anniversary exhibition, the artistic treatment of space is once again at the center of the show. Fifteen artists from the Trigon area will respond to the original theme in its original environment, creating new, site-specific productions, installations, and three-dimensional explorations of sculpture, painting, and media. In addition, trigon 67/17 will exhibit original works of art, drawings, archival material, and an extensive slide and film program from the 1967 show. This material spans the Künstlerhaus’ basement floor and builds the thematic and historical foundation of this new iteration.

Due to the altered political situation since 1989—the fall of the Iron Curtain and the gradual rapprochement of the former Yugoslavian states and Western Europe—the trigon biennial began losing relevance and finally came to an end with a survey exhibition in 1992. Now, twenty-five years later, artists from the bordering Trigon regions are once again appearing together in a public exhibition in Graz. Even though digital communication and the continuing progress in overcoming language barriers have made artistic exchanges more fruitful, newly reactivated stationary border crossings and growing, European-wide consciousness of national citizenship— despite ongoing economic and political relationships—are hindering cooperation. Therefore, the exhibition also serves to reinforce international cooperation among neighboring countries.

Primarily, though, trigon 67/17 explores issues around art, art history, including questions such as: How is space relevant in art these days? What developments or changes in the institutional and curatorial practice have occurred between 1967 and 2017? What significance do exhibition architecture and display have when it comes to the presentation of art?

The entrance to the exhibition was conceived in collaboration with the architect Eilfried Huth. In 1967, Huth and Günther Domenig created a spectacular exhibition entrance, comprising a two-story, spiral-shaped dome made of transparent plastic. On entering the foyer in 2017, visitors are confronted by a disorienting installation that plays with their spatial perception: Based on the tradition of abstract painting, Esther Stocker’s encompassing work covers the walls with foreshortened, occasionally broken patterns, creating a manipulative, engulfing experience.

Taking a variety of formal and conceptual approaches, all artworks on display in the main exhibition hall are devoted to the theme of the show. Lara Favaretto’s kinetic sculpture Gummo V (2012), with its rotating brushes from a car wash, not only sets itself in motion, but also creates an electromagnetic field that has a direct impact on its immediate surroundings. A steel cable running through the Künstlerhaus in Sonia Leimer’s Instabil auf Unstabil (Instable on Unstable, 2015) keeps a free-standing wall hovering in space by an object of the same weight, hovering at the other end. And Tina Gverović’s large but delicate, indoor installation, titled Diamond Cuts: Sea of People (2016/17), made of steel pipes draped with silk cloth, addresses both factual and traditional boundaries. Corresponding to her indoor work, Gverović has applied a subjective text to the external wall of the Künstlerhaus, dealing with separation and (re)unification.

Equally current social and political associations run through Ludovica Carbotta’s watchtower, installed outside in the surrounding park as part of the artist’s fictional city of Monowe. Hans Schabus’ contribution, Auf der Suche nach der endlosen Säule (Searching for the Endless Pillars, 2017) was conceived specifically for this show and literally goes beyond the exhibition space: Schabus has placed a single tower of automobile tires in the exhibition area, while the second part of the installation can be found in the underground parking garage beneath the city park. Also featured in trigon 67/17 are sculptural prints, falling trap doors, an electronically regulated walkin refrigerator and experiments with audio-visual animation. All together, the individual works form a panorama of the various ways contemporary art deals with space.

The extensive display of material from trigon 67, located in the basement of the Künstlerhaus, makes immediate dialogue with current positions possible. Original works from 1967 by Miroslav Šutej, drawings and models by Oswald Oberhuber, Roland Goeschl, Gianni Colombo and Mario Ceroli create a bridge between the contemporary approaches and the pieces shown fifty years ago. While Ferry Radax made a two-hour, documentary film about the installation of the show for Austrian television, Eilfried Huth captured the psychedelic spirit of the 1960s in colorful films and slides. Evidence of the controversy triggered by trigon 67 is visible in the compilation of occasionally acrimonious letters to the editor, published in Graz’s local newspaper, the Kleine Zeitung, in which, among other things, readers demanded that exhibition director Wilfried Skreiner and cultural administrator Hans Koren resign.

Thus, in celebrating both the Künstlerhaus’ anniversary and the fiftieth anniversary of steirischer herbst festival for contemporary art, which partly emerged out of trigon 67, this new iteration, trigon 67/17 – ambiente nuovo / post environment, is both a retrospective and contemporary exploration.

A new online publication platform will be launched at the opening of trigon 67/17, accompanying the show. It can be accessed through the Künstlerhaus’ homepage and will contain current texts, visual material, and videos about trigon 67/17 (edited by Dominikus Müller, Berlin). Additionally, scholars, curators, and eyewitnesses will discuss trigon 67 and its continuing impact at three international symposia, organized with the Croatian curator Branka Benčić at the Museum of Contemporary Art MSU in Zagreb, at Trieste Contemporanea in Italy, and the Künstlerhaus, Graz.

Section 1
Micol Assaël (1979 Rome, IT – Astypalea, GR)
Rosa Barba (1972 Agrigent, IT – Berlin, DE)
Ludovica Carbotta (1982 Turin, IT – Maastricht, NL)
Lara Favaretto (1973 Treviso, IT – Turin, IT)
Tina Frank / Peter Rehberg (1970 Tulln, AT / 1968 London, UK – Vienna, AT)
Max Frey (1976 Graz, AT – Berlin, DE)
Tina Gverović (1975 Zagreb, HR – London, UK; Dubrovnik, HR)
Flaka Haliti (1982 Pristina, KS – Munich, DE)
Clemens Hollerer (1975 Bruck/Mur, AT – Bad Gleichenberg, AT)
Sonia Leimer (1977 Meran, IT – Vienna, AT)
Tobias Putrih (1972 Kranj, SI – New York City, US)
Hans Schabus (1970 Watschig, AT – Vienna, AT)
Esther Stocker (1974 Schlanders, IT – Vienna, AT)
Jelena Trivić (1980 Ludwigshafen, DE – Berlin, DE)
Markus Wilfling (1966 Innsbruck, AT – Graz, AT)

Section 2 (trigon 67)
Marc Adrian (1930 Vienna, AT – 2008 Vienna AT)
Mario Ceroli (1938 Castelfrentano, IT – Rome, IT) Gianni Colombo (1937 Milan IT – 1993 Melzo, IT) Luciano Fabro (1936 Turin, IT – 2007 Milan, IT) Roland Goeschl (1932 Salzburg, AT – 2016 Vienna, AT) Jaki Jože Horvat (1930 Murska Sobota, SI – 2009 Nazarje, SI) Enzo Mari (1932 Novara, IT – Milan, IT) Oswald Oberhuber (1931 Meran, IT – Vienna, AT) Josef Pillhofer (1921 Vienna, AT – 2010 Vienna AT) Rudolf Pointner (1907 Zadar, HR – 1991 Graz, AT) Vjenceslav Richter (1917 Drenova, HR – 2002 Zagreb, HR) Miroslav Šutej (1936 Duga Resa, HR – 2005 Krapinske Toplice, HR) Jorrit Tornquist (1938 Graz, AT – Bergamo, IT) Drago Tršar (1927 Planina, SI – Ljubljana, SI) Giuseppe Uncini (1929 Fabriano, IT – 2008 Trevi, IT)

General Informationen, dates

trigon 67/17
ambiente nuovo / post environment
23 09 17 – 23 11 17
Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien (KM– Graz)
Burgring 2, 8010 Graz, Österreich, 0043 316 740084

Press talk: 22 09 17, 12 noon
Opening: 23 09 17, 12.30 p.m.
Press Download: http://www.km-k.at/en/exhibition/trigon-6717/press/
Contact: Helga Droschl, hd@km-k.at, + 43 (0)316 740084
Coproduction: steirischer herbst
Curators: Jürgen Dehm, Sandro Droschl
Architecture: Eilfried Huth
Documentation: Ferry Radax

Opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., Thursday 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
The ticket entitles also to enter the exhibitions at Kunsthaus Graz and Neuen Galerie am Universalmuseum Joanneum.