Vienna Contemporary 2015 Review

For four days, Vienna was again a melting pot of international contemporary art: Vienna Contemporary invited its visitors to an Art Basel-like experience with galleries exhibiting artists from all over the world. I have to admit, it’s much smaller than Art Basel and luckily less people but quality-wise it was definitely worth visiting.
I attended the talk ‘Founders Culture Technology’ with a panel comprised of artists, entrepreneurs and investors. It was very interesting to hear about their experiences, visions for the future, the influence of digital media on artists and their work – in their opinion, the consumers of art will have more influence to shape artworks themselves together with the artists, asking artists to be more flexible in their working processes.
I strolled from gallery to gallery, met a lot of interesting people and really enjoyed getting to know artists I haven’t known before. Check out my favourite works:
Adam Jastrzebski (Galeria Propaganda, Warsaw), John Armleder (Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Vienna/Innsbruck) & Myungil Lee (Gallery H.A.N., Seoul)
Damien Hirst “Happiness” (Galerie Ernst Hilger, Vienna)
Gabriela Oberkofler (Galerie Lisi Hämmerle, Bregenz)
Johanna Kandl (Galerie Lisi Hämmerle, Bregenz) – I like the mix of Mao Zedong’s Hundred Flowers Campaign in the 1950s in China and what seems to be nomadic people in the Middle East. I wonder if the artists wants to say that sometimes we are encouraged to think and speak freely in periods of liberalization but forced to leave as soon as politics change.
Alfred Haberpointner (Galerie Chobot, Vienna)
Vikenti Komitski (Galerie Krinzinger)
Gil Heitor Cortesão, Bernhard Buhmann, Hazem Mahdy (Carbon 12, Dubai)