Nikolaus Gansterer

UPCOMING:

5 April - 23 April 2023

WOR(L)DS DON'T COME EASY

On the 5th of April opening of Nikolaus Gansterers solo exhibition Wor(l)ds Don't Come Easy at Project Room, WIELS - Center for Contemporary Art Brussels, Belgium.

How does language relate to the world and vice versa? Is it possible to grasp seemingly invisible things like thoughts, feelings or atmospheres through art? What signs, lines or languages must be found or invented first?
These and similar questions are at the centre of the solo exhibition Wor(l)ds Don't Come Easy by the Austrian artist Nikolaus Gansterer. Two complementary series of works address the dynamic interplay between language, world perception and finding signs and are being shown for the first time in Belgium at WIELS - Center for Contemporary Art. Gansterer has spent three years intensively studying the influential work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. In exchange with the philosopher Klaus Speidel, drawings, objects, installations and performances were created, which have now been published in a book. In the series of works Philosophical Deviations, Gansterer takes up philosophical thought and translates and expands it with artistic means. In a playful dialogue with Wittgenstein's writings, fundamental themes such as pain and image, colour and imagination, death and the materiality of language come into view. As part of his ongoing research project Contingent Agencies, Gansterer is researching the topic of human and non-human agents. In highly concentrated sessions, Gansterer attempts to notate the entangled interaction of wind, temperature, movement and the perception of a specific atmosphere and mood by means of performative drawings. The exhibition Wor(l)ds Don't Come Easy brings these two groups of works in a complex relationship and provides a fascinating insight into Gansterer’s exploratory view of the world. As part of the exhibition opening on Wednesday 5th of April 2023, the newly published book Playing with Ludwig / Jouer avec Ludwig (Gansterer&Speidel, Editions Dilecta Paris, 2022) will be presented. The writer and dramaturge Jeroen Peeters and the artist Nikolaus Gansterer engage in a conversation and performative activation, Drawing on a Book. How do words, lines, images and the world of the page converse with the multiple languages of artistic practice?  On Friday 7th of April 2023 at 4pm Gansterer will give a guided tour through his exhibition.

RECENT:

21 March 2023, 17:00
THREE ECOLOGIES Böhler & Granzer: Félix Guattari; Nikolaus Gansterer: Atmospheres and Contingent Agencies
In the face of environmental destruction and species extinction, the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari demanded in his seminal writing The Three Ecologies (1989) that an ecological revolution must take place on three levels simultaneously: It must transform man's relationship to the environment and social space, but it must also call for a mental revolution of consciousness and thus develop aesthetic resistance to capitalism and ecocide.
The Philosophical Institute of the University of Vienna will hold five lecture units open to the public in the Rote Bar in the lecture series on Three Ecologies in cooperation with the Volkstheater Wien. In these 5 units, philosopher Arno Böhler together with artists Nikolaus Gansterer, Claudia Bosse, Brigitte Wilfing, Susanne Valerie Granzer and media philosopher Shomo Choudhury will analyse artistic practices that are on their way to ecosophies and that defend themselves against the dilution of the term "ecology".
On the 21st of March Böhler & Granzer will introduce into the work of Félix Guattari and Nikolaus Gansterer will talk about the artistic research project (funded by FWF/ PEEK) Contingent Agencies on the emergence of atmospheres. Admission is free.

21 January - 4 March, 2023
STRANGE WOR(L)DS

Gallery Crone Berlin cordially invites you to the opening of the exhibition 'Strange Wor(l)ds' by Austrian artist Nikolaus Gansterer. On display is a comprehensive series of around forty works in which Gansterer visualizes thoughts, treatises, and theses of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in the most diverse ways. Nikolaus Gansterer belongs to the representatives of the “New Drawing”, who redefine drawing, extend it into space and combine it with performative practices. What distinguishes his work is the content aspect, which he transforms into the formal: in all his works, he refers to natural science, philosophy, literature, poetry, or his own artistic research projects.
In the exhibition 'Strange Wor(l)ds', Gansterer shows a new body of work in which he deals with Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s "Philosophical Investigations", (1953). As it is customary for the artist, he translates Wittgenstein’s thoughts and theses on the complex relation between language and reality into new materilisations using a wide array of techniques, methods, and modes of production. However, the word “translating” must not be misunderstood or interpreted as a servile gesture of adaption. When he “translates,” “transfers,” and “transforms” Wittgenstein’s texts into the pictorial, this is not done in the sense of an illustration. Rather, through the act of drawing, he expands them, interprets them, delimits them, gives them a new dimension, a new aggregate state, a new level of reception.

On Friday the 20th of January 2023 opening of the solo exhibition "Strange Wor(l)ds" presenting new work by Nikolaus Gansterer at Galerie CRONE, Berlin. On Saturday the 21st of January, 16:00 there will be a performative book launch of the brand-new bilingual publication "Playing with Ludwig: Figures of Thinking (Jouer avec Ludwig: Figures de pensée", Éditions Dilecta, Paris by Nikolaus Gansterer & Klaus Speidel in conversation with Jan Philipp Fruehsorge at Galerie CRONE Berlin, Fasanenstrasse 29, Germany.

2 December 2022 - 14 January 14 2023

GEMISCHTER SATZ

Group show with recent work by Carola Dertnig, Nikolaus Gansterer, Daniel Lergon, Oswald Oberhuber, Stefan Reiterer, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Milen Till and Otto Zitko at Galerie Crone Vienna, Getreidemarkt 14 / Eschenbachgasse, Austria.

21 May 2022 - 05 February 2023
RENDEZVOUZ WITH THE COLLECTION: Art from 1960 to today
The presentation of the permanent collection at Landesgalerie Niederösterreich in Krems will display large-scale paintings and sculptural works as well as time-based media, most of which will be on view for the first time. The items will be installed in generously interpreted groups of contextual, stylistic, and formal associations. A extensive group exhibition featuring well-known representatives of Austrian contemporary art but also artistic positions that are little known and yet to be discovered.
Curated by Gerda Ridler and Alexandra Schantl.

3 December 2022

AMTSALON BERLIN
Twenty galleries have joined forces to show a selection of their programs under the roof of the former District Court in Charlottenburg, Amtsalon Berlin, Kantstrasse 79, 10627 Berlin. Galerie Crone presents new work by Ruscha Voormann, Robert Muntean, Volo Bevza, Anthony Goicolea and Tex Rubinowitz, as well as affordable art and and artist editions by Carsten Fock, Emmanuel Bornstein, Erez Israeli, Verena Issel, Milen Till, Sahar Zukerman, Nikolaus Gansterer, Constantin Luser, Tobias Hoffknecht, Carola Dertnig, Daniel Lergon, Tomas Kleiner, Otto Zitko and Rosemarie Trockel.

11 - 26 November 2022
VISIONS OF MEDIA ART: AN DER TAFEL
In the exhibition series Visions of Media Art contemporary artists are invited to react, reflect and be inspired by visionary ideas and attitudes of programmatic artists. In 2022, Oswald Wiener is the key figure for this project. The writer/cyberneticist/language theorist/gastronomer comprehended his work as a synthesis of cognitive science and artistic-philosophical literature. Departing from fragments of linguistic and cybernetic thought experiments, Wiener developed a model of a humankind whose consciousness is altered by cybernetics. For the exhibition “An der Tafel”, artists Ann Cotten / Tada Kanako, Nikolaus Gansterer, Martina Menegon and Jörg Piringer enter into a dialogue with his works. The eCurated by alien productions and Gerda Lampalzer.
On 11.11. 2022 at 19:00 opening of the show with a performance by Ann Cotten and Tada Kanako. On 25. 11. 2022 at 19:00 lecture by Lampalzer/Opperman. The exhibition is part of Vienna Art Week 2022 and takes place at Medienwerkstatt Wien, Neubaugasse 40a, 1070 Viennan, open Mon / Fri / Sat 14:00-18:00.

19 - 25 September, 2022

CONTINGENT AGENCIES: CROSS-DISCIPLINARY SYMPOSIUM
Contingent Agencies is an artistic research project conceived as an inquiry into atmospheres — the subtle, dynamic, complex, and enveloping presences that emerge in given situations for those who inhabit them. More particularly, this project investigates the specific ways in which the agencies of single components of a situation (from light to animals, artifacts to sounds, matter to vegetation, traffic to color …) condition the emergence of these all-over and senseful presences.
In this concluding symposium, a cross-disciplinary group of researchers will address this complex subject matter as well as the specific research methodology developed in this project, based on practices of notation and reflection in diverse media. Participant researchers will be Karen Barad, Arno Boehler, Emma Cocker, Gerhard Dirmoser, Mika Elo, Tim Ingold, Sabina Holzer, Paula Kramer, Lambros Malafouris, Erin Manning, Dieter Mersch, Hans Jörg Rheinberger, and Andreas Spiegl, together with the principal investigators Nikolaus Gansterer and Alex Arteaga and the head of the Zentrum Fokus Forschung Alexander Damianisch.
Agencies and atmospheres will be inquired from a multi-perspective approach with contributions from artistic research (somatics, choreography, drawing, sound, video, photography, language-based practices) philosophy, archeology, anthropology and physics. The symposium is conceived as an intensive research week that includes micro-workshops, practice sessions, public lectures, panel discussions (both accessible onsite and online), and showings of artifacts. Further information and a detailed program can be found on the project’s website: www.contingentagencies.net This website presents numerous notations and reflections of atmospheric agencies, including detailed information about the processes of their realization as well as the conceptual framework of the whole project. A comprehensive publication is planned for release in 2023.

15 - 18 September 2022
AMTSALON BERLIN 
Galerie Crone is presenting work by Jozéf Jarema, Darrel Ellis and Nikolaus Gansterer at the 3rd gallery pop-up show at the former courthouse in Berlin Charlottenburg at Amtsalon, Room 4, Kantstrasse 79.

6 - 11 September 2022
PARALLEL: BRIGITTE KOWANZ ETC
The art fair PARALLEL Vienna presents a special group show tp pay homage to the Austrian artist Brigitte Kowanz (1957-2022) and to mark the tenth anniversary of the fair. PARALLEL Vienna is a hybrid between art fair, exhibition platform and artist studio. The group exhibition is curated by Adrian Kowanz & Stefan Bidner.

12 - 31 August 2022

NIKOLAUS GANSTERER: SUMMER SOLO EXHIBITION at GALERIE PETRA SEISER

In his multi-layered work, Nikolaus Gansterer explores the dynamic field between drawing, thinking and action. The artist observes fundamental cycles of perception between recognising and naming, recording and remembering, thereby revealing immanent network structures. In his solo exhibition at Galerie Petra Seiser at Attersee, he provides a current insight into various groups of works and addresses the subtle processes of sense-making in form of drawings and sculptures. Nikolaus Gansterer succeeds in playfully questioning the apparent boundaries between language and material, art and philosophy. Opening of the exhibition on Friday 12 August 2022 at 19:00. The artist will be present. Live concert by Ulrich Drechsler in the exhibition on Friday 19 August at 19:00.

June 2022

WAYS INTO KNOWING: DIAGRAMMATIC ENTANGLEMENTS
In the contribution to the new editorial of Arts Cabinet 'Ways into Knowing', artist Nikolaus Gansterer and curator, writer Fatoş Üstek engage in a conversation on employing diagramming as an artistic method focussing on the trilogy of works that punctuate Gansterer’s practice spanning the last decade. Together, they investigate the expansive force of diagrammes in instigating relational networks amongst seemingly disparate areas of knowledge formation, and how this investigation manifests itself as artistic modes of production. The conversation between Nikolaus Gansterer & Fatoş Üstek on Diagrammatic Entanglements is presented on a full transcript and a 3-parts film.
The first iteration of 'Ways into Knowing' offers a base to reflect upon and document the oscillatory nature of research, with a focus on uncertainty and not-knowing as starting conditions for processes of inquiry. Editorial Guest Contributors: Virginia Chihota // A.S. Bruckstein Çoruh // Nikolaus Gansterer & Fatos Üstek // KUNCI Study Forum & Collective: Acong, a.k.a Onyenho & Khoiril Maqin // mother tongues // Hans Rosenström. Moderator of the final symposium is Nida Ghouse. Rebecca Hill will contribute as post editorial guest writer.

20 May 2022, 17:00-22:00

LANGE NACHT DER FORSCHUNG / LONG NIGHT OF RESEARCH 2022

In the course of Lange Nacht der Forschung (The Long Night of Sciences) which is the largest science and research event in the German-speaking world, four current research projects hosted by the University of Applied Arts Vienna are presented: Experiencing materials: 'Greenwashed Concrete' by Eckhard + Weber; 'Gemeinsam durch den Taumel' by Anderwald+Grond; and experiencing atmospheres 'Contingent Agencies' by Nikolaus Gansterer and 'Toxic Temple' by Kilian Jörg + Anna Lerchbaumer. At AIL - Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab with performances, presentations, a book launch and round table discussions moderated by Alexander Daminaisch Alexandra Graupner and Elisabeth Falkensteiner and guests.

22 March 2022, 20:00

MOVING IMAGES AND STATIC SOUNDS
Together with the musician and composer Martin Siewert a multifacet film programme is presented at Stadtkino / Künstlerhaus Vienna showcasing his extensive work in film and sound. The programme includes music videos, compositions for film and moving image installations by Martin Siewert in collaboration with, among others: Siegrun Appelt, Artificial Horizon & Milli Bitterli, Martin Brandlmayr, Khadija von Zinneburg Carroll, Angela Christlieb, Gustav Deutsch, Nikolaus Gansterer, Michaela Grill, Simona Koch, Dieter Kovačič, Dariusz Kowalski, Annja Krautgasser (nja), Jan Machacek, John Norman, Frans Poelstra, Billy Roisz, Anat Stainberg, Robert Steijn, Michael Thiele, Yosi Wanunu & Toxic Dreams. Curated by Martina Tritthart and Holger Lang / Freies Kino. Free admission.

15 March 2022 - 09 April 2022
UNDERSTANDING - ART & RESEARCH
The University of Applied Arts Vienna presents exemplary approaches to its artistic research under the title UNDERSTANDING – ART & RESEARCH, it is about understanding as the very creative impulse. Through examples from research and teaching, science and art the transformation of society can be viewed, examined, sensed, discussed and experienced. Curated by Gerald Bast, Alexander Damianisch and Barbara Putz-Plecko. On 14th of March 2022, at 18:00 official opening of the show at UM Gallery, UMPRUM, nám. Jana Palacha 80, Prague 1, Czech Republic.

PAST:

3 March 2022
CONTINGENT AGENCIES – "THE COLLINGWOOD YARDS THING" at LIQUID ARCHITECTURE, NARRM/MELBOURNE
Contingent Agencies is an artistic research project initiated by Nikolaus Gansterer and Alex Arteaga to inquire into a subject matter that is denominated with various terms as moods, places, environments or atmospheres. Each situation is endowed with a particular atmosphere. Each circumstance brings about a specific environment: a significant but non-objectified, precise but vague, ephemeral and enveloping presence. This project aims at developing specific practices of notation and reflection that allow for a more comprehensive understanding of how the agencies enable the emergence of these kind of presences. After an internal workshop, where practices of notation and reflection were applied in ressonance with the atmosphere of Collingwood Yards by a group of invited researchers the findings of the workshop will be dialogically shared with an open audience.

6-7pm public presentations by Nikolaus Gansterer (Contingent Agencies) featuring Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, Aarti Jadu, Debris Facility, Helen Grogan, Rosie Isaac, Zoe Scoglio and Joel Stern. The event takes place in the framework of Mono-Poly March 2022 curated by Liquid Architecture and Composite, at Collingwood Yards, 35 Johnston, Collingwood, Woiwurrung and Boonwurrung, Narrm, VIC 3066, Australia.

12 February 2022, 15:30 (CET)
FINISSAGE WITH PERFORMANCE: FIGURES DE PENSÉE. DENKBEWEGUNGEN
On the penultimate day of the exhibition "Figures de pensée / Denkbewegungen" Les Tanneries organizes a hybrid lecture-performance, where the philosopher Klaus Speidel and I will be realizing a new table constellation for the series Playing Games with Ludwig. Nikolaus Gansterer will be joining from Melbourne, while Klaus Speidel will be present in the space with the visitors in Les Tanneries, Amilly, France. Playing Games with Ludwig is an ongoing series of game-performances in which the philosopher Klaus Speidel and the artist Nikolaus Gansterer discuss themes like games and gaming or the value of indeterminacy in concepts while sitting face to face on a blackboard-table surrounded by objects to be used as the conversation develops. Each conversation takes as its starting point a specific paragraph from Ludwig Wittgenstein's writings.

05 - 09 October 2021
Contingent Agencies is an artistic research project initiated by Nikolaus Gansterer and Alex Arteaga conceived as an inquiry into the subtle, dynamic, complex, and enveloping presences that emerge in given situations for those who inhabit them. These presences are denominated with various terms such as “Stimmungen", “moods", or even “places"; in this project we favor the words “atmospheres” and “environments". More particularly, this project investigates the specific ways in which the actualization of the agencies of single components of a situation (from light to animals, from artifacts to sounds, from matter to vegetation,...) conditions the emergence of these comprehensive and senseful presences. Accordingly, atmospheres are considered as coherent networks of phenomena that emerge due to a systemically organized set of intertwined agencies: the capacity of each component of a given situation to transform the presence of the other components and the arising environment.
The event "Notations, Reflection & Strategies of Display" is structured in three parts. An internal workshop (5 – 7 October); a public dialogue (8 October, 5 pm) and an exploratory installation (9 October, 11 am – 8 pm). In the public dialogue, the findings of the workshop will be dialogically shared with an open audience. In the exploratory installation, artefacts of notation and reflection will be publicly displayed in order to further incentivize dialogues and open-ended processes of reflection. With Alex Arteaga, Emma Cocker, Karmen Franinović, Nikolaus Gansterer, Nicole Six & Paul Petritsch, Frida Robles, Charlotta Ruth at APL - Angewandte Performance Laboratory, (which is situated at former P.S.K.), Georg-Coch-Platz 2, A-1010 Vienna, Austria.

25 Sept 2021 - 13 February 2022

FIGURES DE PENSÉE. DENKBEWEGUNGEN

“I can easily imagine someone always doubting before he opened his front door whether an abyss did not yawn behind it, and making sure about it before he went through the door.” (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical investigations, §84).

Since Antiquity, philosophers incessantly imagine strange scenarios to serve their arguments. Often, their “thought experiments” take us to worlds very different from ours, with other social, ethical or natural laws. Rather than full-fledged literary texts, these philosophical scenes, however, remain sketches for the most part, as they are detailed just enough to make philosophical claims plausible. But what happens if we try to turn one of these pure "thought-objects", merely designed for the imagination, into real things or if we try to perform one of the scenes described by a philosopher?

Questions like these stand at the beginning of the exhibition imagined by the artist and performer Nikolaus Gansterer together with the curator and theorist Klaus Speidel. Together Gansterer and Speidel playfully develop different figurations to put to the test the theoretical work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. Their interest in figures of thought is an extension of the research that each of them has developed in the past through different mediums. The figures they develop are about translation and transfer, about how thoughts and words become images and objects and vice versa. The new works will be contextualised with works by Gansterer on the shapes of diagrammatic visualizations and patterns of spatial interactions through performative notation. At Centre d'art contemporain - Les Tanneries, in Amilly, France.

23 Nov 2021 - 15 Jan 2022

40 YEARS FOTOGALERIE VIENNA
Looking back - Looking around - Looking to the future: A 40 year anniversary exhibition at Fotogalerie Vienna, Austria. Participating artists: Thomas Albdorf, Sabine Bitter, Helmut Weber, Robert Bodnar, Eva Choung-Fux, Philipp Fleischmann, Thomas Freiler, Nikolaus Gansterer, G.R.A.M., Birgit Graschopf, Mary Gold, Rosa John, Alek Kawka, Friedl Kubelka, Gašper Kunšič, Robert F. Hammerstiel, Claudia Larcher, Simon Lehner, Anja Manfredi, Julian Lee-Harather, Roberta Lima, Sissa Micheli, Michael Michlmayr, Andreas Müller, Michaela Moscouw, Hyeji Nam, Olena Newkryta, Anja Nowak, Klaus Pamminger, Hermes Payrhuber, PRINZGAU/podgorschek, Wolfgang Reichmann, Gabriele Rothemann, Bastian Schwind, Eva Schlegel, Laura Sperl, Simona Reisch, Patrick Topitschnig, Julian Turner, Christina Werner, Robert Zahornicky. Opening on Monday, 22 November 2021, 7 p.m.

24 June 2021 - 2 January 2022
SEFO TRIENNIAL, UNIVERSUM
The main exhibition of the SEFO 2021 Triennial - Universum at Olomouc Museum of Modern Art, Czech Republic, presents a group of artists from the broader Central European region whose work repeatedly addresses the issues of the determination, naming, composition, organisation and meaning of the elements making up the world we inhabit. Rather than by topic or approach and definitely not by the medium in which they work, these individuals are united by a way of thinking, their use of basic definitions and polarities that we employ to help us on the path to understanding. The human world is paradoxical: the more it longs for unity and wholeness, the more it creates dividing lines and barriers. The tension between what is inside and what we consider our own and what is outside and belongs to everyone, so to speak, is considerable and also critical for our own self-perception.The oscillation around this ever-changing focus then includes artists trying to recreate the moment of experience with what is, what serves for direct touch or view. At the same time, they transcend the boundaries of the real, or the virtual, the possible, and show the great importance of storytelling, the story we share and the language we use to relate it. At the same time, they demonstrate the most important thing, that facts are established on the basis of a common culture, not the other way around. And that art permanently and constantly reveals what it means to create reality. In this constellation, the “universum” is a pliable structure. It is not complete or all-embracing. Its skeleton is human experience with the world – non-factual, complex and variable. What we share is a system of fixed points, and what makes it exceptional is what lies in between.

With contributions by Adam Albert, Lubomír Axmann, Uršula Berlot-Pompe, Nikolaus Gansterer, Agata Gertschen, Jana Gunstheimer, Jaroslav Grulkowski, Adam Kokesch, Gábor Koós, Áron Kútvölgyi-Szabó, Joanna Leszczyńská, Jan Pamułas, Karol Pomykała, Ondřej Přibyl, Zdeněk Trs. Curated by Barbora Kundračíková.

22 Nov 2021

ZWISCHENZEICH(N)EN

Nikolaus Gansterer will give an artist talk on expanded drawing at the class for conceptual painting by Prof. Katharina Hinsberg at Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar (HBKsaar), Germany. Using images, materials and examples from his work, Nikolaus Gansterer will introduce his ongoing practices of notation. Gansterer understands the processes of thinking and drawing as synonymous. He therefore addresses the fundamental question of how thought processes can be translated and explores how the act of drawing can become a tool of communication.

20 Nov 2021

NOTIONS OF NOTATION
In the course of the PhD programme at the Artistic Research Center of MDW (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna), Austria Nikolaus Gansterer will give a lecture and a practice based workshop on forms of expanded drawing and experimental tactics of subjective mapping. Using images, materials and examples from his work, Nikolaus Gansterer will introduce his ongoing practices of notation.

15 - 17 Nov 2021

ZWISCHENZEICH(N)EN

In the course of Werkwoche – International Design Week 2021 at Hochschule für Gestaltung Augsburg, Germany Nikolaus Gansterer will give a lecture and a practice based workshop on expanded drawing and experimental forms of subjective mapping. Using images, materials and examples from his work, Nikolaus Gansterer will introduce his ongoing practice of notation. Gansterer understands the processes of thinking and drawing as synonymous. He therefore addresses the fundamental question of how thought processes can be translated and explores how the act of drawing can become a tool of communication.

11 Nov 2021, 17:00-19:00

WITHDRAWING THE PERFORMER

Kick- off of the research project "Withdrawing the Performer - Performances for the Mind and Choreographic Clues" by Charlotta Ruth and Jasmin Schaitl with guest contributors Nikolaus Gansterer, Mariella Greil, Imani Rameses, Lucie Strecker at the APL Studio - Angewandte Performance Lab at the Expositur Alte Postsparkasse, Georg-Coch-Platz 2, Vienna, Austria.

13 Oct - 13 Nov 2021

PROPERTIES OF A PRESENCE
Properties of a Presence are works about the move to return looted cultural property from Europe to its former colonies. Inspired by the history of artists who have intervened with their own personal repatriations and replicas into the failure of Austria to return el Penacho to Mexico, this exhibition is part of an artistic research project ‘Repatriates’ that studies the larger protest movement for decolonial repair that has been running in public spaces of Vienna. In the work 'The Restitution of Complexity' the movement of people and objects in relation is shown as documentation of a Translecture with Nikolaus Gansterer. The script for this performance was based on her book The Contested Crown: Repatriation politics between Mexico and Europe, 2021. Artists: Claudia Peña Salinas, Marcus Neustetter, Nina Hoechtl,
Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll and Nikolaus Gansterer. Curated by Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll. Opening 13.10.2021, 19:00, FLUC - In der Kubatur des Kabinetts Kunstsalon - Praterstern 5, 1020 Vienna, Austria.

5 - 9 October, 2021

NOTATIONS, REFLECTION & STRATEGIES OF DISPLAY

Contingent Agencies is an artistic research project initiated by Nikolaus Gansterer and Alex Arteaga conceived as an inquiry into the subtle, dynamic, complex, and enveloping presences that emerge in given situations for those who inhabit them. These presences are denominated with various terms such as “Stimmungen", “moods", or even “places"; in this project we favor the words “atmospheres” and “environments". More particularly, this project investigates the specific ways in which the actualization of the agencies of single components of a situation (from light to animals, from artifacts to sounds, from matter to vegetation,...) conditions the emergence of these comprehensive and senseful presences. Accordingly, atmospheres are considered as coherent networks of phenomena that emerge due to a systemically organized set of intertwined agencies: the capacity of each component of a given situation to transform the presence of the other components and the arising environment.
The event "Notations, Reflection & Strategies of Display" is structured in three parts. An internal workshop (5 – 7 October); a public dialogue (8 October, 5 pm) and an exploratory installation (9 October, 11 am – 8 pm). In the public dialogue, the findings of the workshop will be dialogically shared with an open audience. In the exploratory installation, artefacts of notation and reflection will be publicly displayed in order to further incentivize dialogues and open-ended processes of reflection. With Alex Arteaga, Stephanie Bunn, Emma Cocker, Karmen Franinović, Nikolaus Gansterer, Nicole Six & Paul Petritsch, Frida Robles, Charlotta Ruth at APL - Angewandte Performance Laboratory, (which is situated at former P.S.K.), Georg-Coch-Platz 2, A-1010 Vienna, Austria.
Contingent Agencies is hosted by the University for Applied Arts Vienna and funded by the Program for Arts-based Research (PEEK) of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

5 August 2021, 20:30

LINES & SIGNS - 30 YEARS TANZWERKSTATT EUROPA

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of TANZWERKSTATT EUROPA, the symposium/podium "Against all Odds - a sympodium of movements of body and thought" poses the question "How to continue dancing (against)? In a discursive parcour, performative-artistic, theoretical and personal reactions to the central question will be presented in analogue and digital form. Further the evening documents, discusses, appreciates and celebrates 30 years of TANZWERKSTATT EUROPA. Developments in dance theory and socio-politics will be placed in the context of the history of the festival as a meeting point and place of artistic exchange for the (inter)national dance scene.

The Viennese artist and performer Nikolaus Gansterer will transform the spoken contributions and lectures live in the form of his translecture performances by building dynamic and diagrammatic sculptures that visualise the movements of thought in relation to the contributions.

With performances by Esther Balfe, Jérôme Bel, Jonathan Burrows, Ramsay Burt, Boris Charmatz, Nikolaus Gansterer, Janez Janša, Jin Lee, Lucas Lopez, Àngels Margarit, Anna Mendelssohn, Jeremy Nelson, Ceren Oran, Moritz Ostruschnjak, Virginie Roy, Ana Vujanović, Frank Willens among others. Curated by Walter Heun. Admission free at Muffathalle Munich, Germany.

3 July - 12 September 2021

DEUX SCÉNARIOS POUR UNE COLLECTION - Plan, image, sequence

"Deux scénarios pour une collection" presents an exhaustive panorama of the works recently acquired by the Frac Normandie Rouen by proposing two successive hangings whose articulations and approaches can be likened to two distinct scenarios, to two writings. While the first one shows, in a sensitive way, different ways of representing and staging the body, nature and matter, the second one, more conceptual in appearance, is guided by the question of the device and acts as a backdrop. Designed according to two specific approaches, the exhibition features nearly 150 works produced by 62 artists. Many of the works exhibited are related to the major themes that guide the collection today, such as the environment through built space, territory and nature; the body in its aesthetic, social and political dimensions, but also in its media and performative dimensions; or the narrative in disruptive forms linked to books, writing, images and installations. Through these two "scenarios", the exhibition also offers the public the opportunity to attend the unhooking of the first part and the hanging of the second part by the management team. It is thus understood as a work in progress, a montage in progress that gives an unprecedented access to the backstage of the exhibition.With work by amongst others Katinka Bock, Mathieu Bonardet, Ulla Von Brandenburg, Broomberg & Chanarin, Lynne Brouwer, Thomas Cartron, Jagna Ciuchta, Le Collectif d’en Face, Anne Collier, Dominique De Beir, Morgane Fourey, Marina Gadonneix, Nikolaus Gansterer, Marc-Antoine Garnier, Agnès Geoffray, Geert Goiris, Joseph Grigely, Raphaël Grisey, Christophe Guérin, Florim Hasani, Albane Hupin, Pierre Joseph, Hiwa K, Barbara Kasten, Julien Lelièvre, Élodie Lesourd, Mac Adams, Manuela Marques, Mathieu Mercier, Marianne Mispelaëre, Géraldine Millo, Matan Mittwoch, Karl Nawrot, Constance Nouvel, Estefanía Peñafiel Loaiza, Aurélie Pétrel, Diogo Pimentão, Julien Prévieux, Isabelle Prim, Eileen Quinlan, Sébastien Rémy, Sébastien Reuzé, Sebastian Riemer, Gilles Saussier, Timothée Schelstraete, Joachim Schmid, Pierre Seiter, Slavs And Tatars, Cally Spooner, Éric Tabuchi, Laure Tiberghien, Julie Tocqueville, François Trocquet, Francisco Tropa, Thu-Van Tran, Frédéric Vaesen, Erik Van Der Weijde, Ian Wallace.

15 – 31 May, 2021  

UNDERSTANDING - ART & RESEARCH

The University of Applied Arts Vienna presents exemplary approaches to its artistic research under the title UNDERSTANDING – ART & RESEARCH, it is about understanding as the very creative impulse. Through examples from research and teaching, science and art the transformation of society can be viewed, examined, sensed, discussed and experienced. Curated by Gerald Bast, Alexander Damianisch and Barbara Putz-Plecko. Opening of the show at Art Center CBD LUJIAZUI, 407 Pudian Road, Shanghai, China on May 14, 2021, 15:00.

9 April 2021, 18:00
TEMPO INCOGNITO TALKS
In the first of the series of talks to be held as part of the exhibition, Tempo Incognito: On Flows, Rhythm and Movement at Depo Istanbul, Louise Manifold & Rosella Baldi, Nikolaus Gansterer and Fiona Reilly will talk about the thinking and creative processes behind the works in the exhibition. In his talk “Figuring the Ephemeral” the artist Nikolaus Gansterer will introduce his practice of expanded drawing and notating temporal phenomena. The artist is concerned with translating processes of thought and perception (both conscious and subconscious) and examines the act of drawing as a tool for communication. He applies a unique performative grammar, in which the flow of his observations in relation to his environment manifest as captivating live drawings, diagrams and arrangements. Talks will be online and held in English. Please register here.

07 April 2021, 20:00 – 21:30
APPLIED ARTISTIC RESEARCH: URGENT EXPLORATIONS ON DARE – CARE – SHARE POSITIONS AND REFLECTIONS
In the context of the 12th International Conference on Artistic Research possible positions and reflections of art and research at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, an exchange on contents and forms of artistic research with the APL – Angewandte Performance Lab (Peter Kozek, Barbis Ruder, Lucie Strecker), Nikolaus Gansterer and Margarete Jahrmann, together with Gerald Bast, Alexander Damianisch and Barbara Putz-Plecko. Explorative working methods by the paticipating artists will be presented in the context of the Angewandte environment and related to each other in a moderated round table which can be accessed as a streamed public evening event.

3 March - 18 April 2021
TEMPO INCOGNITO: ON FLOWS, RHYTHM, AND MOVEMENT
The exhibition Tempo Incognito: On Flows, Rhythm, and Movement will take place in art space Depo, Istanbul. Curated by Rana Öztürk, the group exhibition and its accompanying programme intends to examine the experience and conceptualization of “temporality” in contemporary societies while exploring how our current sense of time is clashing or in tune with the perception of natural, ecological and universal cycles. The current experience of the pandemic has left us in a suspended place, in which we can no longer continue our earlier routines. It has also highlighted many of the urgencies caused by the accelerated rhythm of contemporary society and its damage to the planet. Under these circumstances, the questions that the exhibition aimed to put forward become all the more pertinent. How is temporality experienced on a daily basis within the shifting context of technological, economic and urban systems? What are its implications on the body and its environs, as a site of both individual and collective experiences? Is it possible to move beyond the great divide between the historical time of the society and the time imposed by nature? Can today's ecological crisis, considered to be a direct consequence of the history of human activity, also offer a way of embedding this very history into a deeper geological temporality? How do we negotiate these various experiences of time that are both in harmony and in conflict with each other? Participating artists include Ali Miharbi, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar, Sergen Şehitoğlu, Yağız Özgen, Alper Aydın & Ayşegül Güldöşek, Burçak Bingöl, Cevdet Erek, Deniz Üster & Gürçim Yılmaz, Ece Eldek, Ege Kanar, Ezgi Tok, Fiona Reilley, Handan Saatçioğlu, Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu & Hasan Aksaygın, Linda Boļšakova, Louise Manifold, Nikolaus Gansterer, Selçuk Artut, Sinem Dişli.

20 February - 25 April 2021

… LINE AS THOUGHT, LINES AS UNIVERSE ....
The exhibition "...Line as Thought, Lines as Universe ..." at Salzburger Kunstverein, Austria, is examining contemporary drawing practices in comparison with some pioneers of abstract drawing from the past several decades. The exhibition concept was first inspired by drawings made by the late Romanian artist, Alina Popa. During an illness and leading up to her death in 2019, Alina Popa produced an incredible body of drawings that profoundly depicted her experience. The other exhibited drawings in the exhibition veer into various conceptual and expressive directions, exploring the potential that drawing as an art form presents for depicting the inexpressible and the intangible, as well as circumnavigating ideas, space and the unknown in visual form, and ultimately testing the limits of language and thought. With work by William Anastasi, Nina Canell, Carlfriedrich Claus, Attila Csörgö, Christoph Fink, Habima Fuchs, Nikolaus Gansterer & Alex Arteaga, Monika Grzymala, Morgan O‘Hara, Karel Malich, Isabel Nolan, Alina Popa, Stuart Sherman. Curated by Seamus Kealy and Nikolaus Gansterer. Soft opening on Friday 19th of February between 15:00-19:00. The finissage and presentation of the catalogue with a round table discussion involving some of the artists and writers Ann Cotten and Klaus Speidel is scheduled for Friday 23rd of April 2021.( postponed due to lockdown).

5 February - 3 March 2021

NOT YET (STILL HERE) ALREADY GONE
Although dance and performance are embodied, ephemeral and process-based art forms, there have always been attempts to notate, “write dance”, record movements, and somehow capture live events through scores, maps and diagrams. But how can we become more aware of the flow of our perception, trace the immanent micro-choreographies of thinking and notate the act of sense-making? In a research residency at Dance Nucleus, Singapore Nikolaus Gansterer will explore in correspondance with artists Daniel Kok, Chung Nguyen, Nitphat Ong Polchai, Pat Toh fundamental questions pertaining notation, subjective forms of mapping and modes of diagramming relational thinking. Through transformative shifts from idea to sign, word to image, trace to figure, and material to movement, strategies of inscription of spatial and embodied states are collectively experienced and invented.

9 December 2020 - 20 April 2021

DER ANGRIFF DER GEGENWART - AUSSICHTEN IM POSTWACHSTUM
Nikolaus Gansterer is participating in the group exhibition "Der Angriff der Gegenwart - Aussichten im Postwachstum" (The assault of the present - post-growth perspectives) which drafts poetic and artistic strategies for a post-growth society yet to come. The ever-renewed lust for never-satisfying consumption, the still-routine access to limited resources, cities in an almost self-evident sell-out, unprotected work with no prospect of security and development, an automobilism that has fallen out of time, social cohesion measured by the exponential curves of a pandemic, the suspension of the public sphere - the list could be continued, yet only to capture fragments of a reality that does not pause and thereby never gets beyond the now and the always decisive moment. The imaginable future scenarios of such a present seem only conceivable as brutal, as unbearable dystopias (ecological catastrophe, climate collapse, mass death) or as equally promising and unattainable utopias (fair and just society for 10 billion earthlings in 2050, served by a decarbonized, sustainable economy in harmony with nature). The conditions under which this exhibition comes about arise not least from a global state of emergency. This exhibition therefore asks artists about their images of a present that is marked by end-time imaginings and crises, and yet at the same time seeks conceptions and strength. It takes resistive recordings of a present as well as prospects for a future in order to fight for room to maneuver. The more forceful the stocktaking, the more sharply the concerns can be formulated and transferred, and at the same time the realization that such goals are those of many. In this sense, art is always to be understood politically. The artistic works formulate prospects of an emphatic future in the face of a world in which other approaches are needed more urgently than ever to bring together necessary expertise and accessible general knowledge, real constraints and visionary freedoms, responsible commitment and disturbing images of fear into a powerful diversity: "The avant-garde does not surrender," artist and critical thinker Asger Jorn had made clear in 1962. The exhibition would like to take up this militant claim, since it is essentially about not renouncing the future.

With contributions by Allora & Calzadilla, Böhler & Orendt, Sophie Bösker, Nikolaus Gansterer, Oto Hudec, Markus Jeschaunig, Maria Kanzler, Krištof Kintera, Justin Lieberman, Christian Kosmas Mayer, Nicole Six & Paul Petritsch, Katrin Plavčak, Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger, Michael Strasser, Herwig Turk, Anna Vasof. At the exhibition space Heiligenkreuzer Hof, Schönlaterngasse 5, 1010 Vienna. Curated by Brigitte Felderer, Barbara Horvath, Nina Pohler, Alexandra Strickner in the framework of the Vienna Artweek.

September - November 2020

#JAPAN REVISITED 202x

Then-now-after has been conceived by the Austrian Cultural Forum Tokyo as a platform for artists from Austria to reimagine and revisit their memories, interpretations, and dreams associated with Japan. Building on more than 150 years of cultural exchange between Austria and Japan, the exceptional year 2020 seemed perfect for this experiment. ‍
With works by Beni Altmüller, Yela An, Katharina Bayer, Sebastian Bobik, Hanna Burkart H.H. Capor, Julius Werner Chromecek, Dorit Chrysler, Ann Cotten / Michikazu, Matsune Dekonstrukt/Superkong, Daniel J. Derflinger, Felix Dieckmann, Lucas Dietrich, Akino Distelberger, Martin Ebner, Astrid Edlinger, Omani Frei, Fanni Futterknecht, Anna Gabriele, Nikolaus Gansterer / Simona Koch, Jari Genser, Anne Glassner, David Gobber, Marlene Gollner, Anita Gratzer, Marianne Greber, Elodie Grethen, Felix Grütsch, Katharina Gruzei, Stephie Hacker, Andreas Von Herzogenburg, Edgar Honetschläger, Honey & Bunny I Michelle Inaner, Eginhartz Kanter, Toni Kleinlercher, Matthias Klos, Koekkoek, Viktoria Körösi, Tonia Kos, Milan Loviška / Otto Krause, Peter Lagler, Claudia Larcher, Camilo Latorre, Julia Libiseller, Johann Lurf / Laura Wagner, Lotte Lyon, Nicolas Mahler, Marlene Maier, MaVaEs, Ralo Mayer, Mayerhofer-Ohata, Michaela Meissl, Rebecca Merlic, Silvia Miklin, Flora Miranda, Hannah Neckel / Voidgirl79, Yelena Maksutay / Yoshinori Niwa, Chris Norz / Philipp Osanna, Elza Okazaki, Sarah Ortmeyer, Michael Perl, Christiane Peschek, Karin Pliem, Agnes Prammer, PRINZpod, Gabriele Proy, Werner Puntigam, Christoph Punzmann, Lucja Radwan, Judith Saupper, Chris Saupper, Roman Scheidl, Martha Schnuderl, Iris Schwarz, Walter Seidl, Wolfgang Seierl, Günter Seyfried, Siedl/Cao, Andrea Siegl, Guido Spannocchi, Martina Stock, Dekonstrukt/Superkong, Akemi Takeya, Christian Teckert, Lea Titz, Hannah Todt, Julian Turner, Nana Tylo, Hana Usui, Sarah Van Esbroeck, Michael Vienne, Johann Lurf and Laura Wagner, Therese Wagner, Margret Wibmer, Rosa Wiesauer, Anna Witt, Alexandra Zedtwitz, Laurent Ziegler, Christian Zürn.

  Visit the work in the Online gallery: https://www.japanrevisited.at/

#JapanRevisited202x is a project by the Austrian Cultural Forum Tokyo.

9 September - 6 October 2020

FRAGE & AUFBRUCH

A group show examining the borderland between the practice of visual art and animation film at the Oberösterreichischer Kunstverein, Linz, Austria. With work by Nikolaus Gansterer, Barbara Höller, Line Finderup Jensen, Mariela Schöffmann, Thomas Steiner, Anna Vasof. On the 25th of September at 19:00 a special screening with films by the exhibiting artist and international animation films are scheduled at Moviemento Cinema Linz. Curated by Thomas Steiner and Thomas Renoldner in collaboration with Asifa - Association International du Film d' Animation.

4 April - 7 June 2020

FIGURES DE PENSÉES. DENKBEWEGUNGEN

Questions like these stand at the beginning of the exhibition imagined by the artist and performer Nikolaus Gansterer together with the curator and theorist Klaus Speidel. Together Gansterer and Speidel playfully develop different figurations to put to the test the theoretical work of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. Their interest in figures of thought is an extension of the research that each of them has developed in the past through different mediums. The figures they develop are about translation and transfer, about how thoughts and words become images and objects and vice versa. The new works will be contextualised with works by Gansterer on the shapes of diagrammatic visualizations and patterns of spatial interactions through performative notation. On the 4th of April 2020 festive opening of the the extensive exhibition at Centre d'art contemporain - Les Tanneries, in Amilly, France. The opening has been canceled due to covid19 - the exhibition is planned to take place in September 2021!

30 March 2020

WINNER of the SAR RC PRIZE 2019

The SAR RC Prize for Best Exposition 2019 goes to: Choreo-graphic Figures: Scoring Aesthetic Encounters (2019)
The exposition Choreo-graphic Figures: Scoring Aesthetic Encounters (2019) stages an encounter between choreography, drawing, sound and writing in order to explore those knowledge forms through collaborative exchange. The exposition stages the different modes of practice as an actual dialogue and collision, and derives from the findings of the artistic research project Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line (2014-2017) by Emma Cocker, Nikolaus Gansterer and Mariella Greil. The researchers seek to extend their investigation in questioning how a digital archive can be created that is capable of reflecting the durational and relational aspects of the research process. The outcome is a non-linear rhizomatic (using the artists’ term) encounter with artistic research, where the findings are activated as a choreo-graphic event. The artist and designer Simona Koch supported the transformation from an embodied, experiential enquiry into different publication formats, including a text-based book, alongside the online digital format of the RC exposition. The RC complements the shortcomings of printed material and utilizes the performative qualities of sound, image and film that cannot be expressed in the printed material. In this way in the project, the digital and printed material complement each other.

The exposition can be encountered experientially through a section called ‘Playing the Score’, whilst the ‘Find Out More’ section contains contextual framing alongside conceptual-theoretical reflections on the ecology of practices and figures. The authors (Emma Cocker, Nikolaus Gansterer, Mariella Greil-Moebius, Simona Koch) make an interesting use of the RC platform, communicating their research through rich and articulate interactions between text and multimedia materials. Once the user selects ‘Play the Score’, the exposition becomes an inhabited drawing where performance, documentation, notation and user agency are blurred, and their interconnections are explored in rich ways. The complexity of the exposition is built through written and spoken word, video and sound recordings, photos and graphic elements that enable and encourage the user to literally re-enact the research process. Documentation of the performative elements of the research interplay with artistic writings, presented as animated text elements and reflections of notational forms that are embedded in the current discourse on [e.g.] aesthetics and human nature. The delightful and enjoyable layout and design of the exposition helps the reader understand the content. The exposition was published in Journal for Artistic Research – JAR 18.

28 March 2020
BOUNDLESS OBJECTS
Solo performance by Nikolaus Gansterer at Culture Art Centre of Fundacao Eugenio de Almeida, Evora, Portugal in the framework of the ongoing groupshow "Boundless Objects".
What are objects and how they come to existence? Living and nonliving – objects are never complete, stable or inert; they are emerging only in complex relations and always within specific contexts. Situated at the intersection of art, philosophy, geology, ecology, physics, and technology, this exhibition aims to bring together contemporary art practices which make inquiries about how objects emerge in their constant transfigurations. Works by Ana Leonor Madeira Rodrigues, Ana Rewakowicz, André Sier, Erica Seccombe, Izabella Gustowska, Jennifer Robertson, Kathy High, Marek Wasilewski, Marta de Menezes, Nikolaus Gansterer, Piotr Bosacki and Renata Rosado. Curated by Monika Bakke. The performence has been canceled due to covid19!

12 March - 30 April 2020
“NORTH BY NORTH-EAST”
The exhibition sets a course for the elementary forms of drawing. Based on an understanding of the body as an instrument for seismographic recording and as an intelligent storage medium for complex knowledge, »NORTH BY NORTHEAST« explores central issues in drawing: Which stimuli and conditions are relevant for drawing processes? What part do physical action and movement play? What is the role of chance and how is temporality visibly inscribed into the drawing? As the exhibited works meet they allow previous notions of drawing and how drawings are read to be reviewed, encouraging the exploration of unknown forms of graphic notation and provoking an expansion of each artist’s individual repertoire. The exhibition space at the Deutscher Künstlerbund, (Markgrafenstraße 67, in Berlin, Germany) acts as a laboratory to examine and demonstrate the performative and processual potential of drawing.

With work by Nikolaus Gansterer, Stella Geppert, Katja Pudor, Christian Schellenberger, Nicole Wendel, Saskia Wendland. The opening has been canceled due to covid19 - but the show can be seen through the gallery windows.

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