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.