Main Exhibition

Curatorial Statement The history of Austria and Vienna is closely interwoven with the history and present of Ukraine and of the Kyiv Biennial: in 2016, Vienna hosted “schools” from the first Biennial n 2015 in an extensive exhibition project entitled “The School of Kyiv.” It was only in winter this year that the Biennial’s organizers from the Visual Culture Research Center decided, against all odds and against the logic of the war that threatens to eat away at the entire civil realm, that the Kyiv Biennial 2023 would be held as planned – as an international solidarity-oriented event, both in Ukraine and in Europe. This decision came to fruition in Vienna. That made it only natural for part of this project to be held in Vienna. The city has now become the venue for the Kyiv Biennial 2023’s main exhibition, organized and curated by the Biennial’s founding team. From the first conceptual ideas in May, the project in Vienna aimed to contribute to reintegrating the Ukrainian artistic community, divided by the war and scattered all over Europe. Members of that community were to be given an opportunity to reflect, together with international colleagues and partners, on the cultural, social, and environmental challenges currently facing them personally and for Ukraine as a whole, as well as to place these challenges within a transnational context. The dialogues between the works of nearly 60 Ukrainian and international artists therefore form the core of the project. As curators, we have refrained from placing these works under the – always constricting – textual figure of a title. The geopolitical rupture and dislocation that form the background to this biennial constitute the reality that connects its contents. The power, depth and poignancy, indeed the poetry, of the works it gathers should speak for themselves here: artistic works and interventions, installations and investigative documentaries that are set in the context of the catastrophic reality of war, but also pieces that explore possible exit strategies from the current impasse of war, authoritarianism, and colonialism. Concrete, productive exchanges between the participating artists and the broader cultural scene in Vienna, in Ukraine and in the diaspora, and their international colleagues seem to us to be the crucial aspect of the exhibition constellations at Augarten Contemporary and in independent spaces around the city. We would like to see this creating bridges and pillars for a personal and institutional relationship with Ukraine that will endure long beyond the projects shown in 2023. Addressing the question of what true cultural-political solidarity with a war-torn country means, the main exhibition aims, as part of the overall framing of the entire Kyiv Biennial 2023, to explore concepts for an institutional infrastructure of art and culture in the wartime and post-war period that creates cross-cutting connections between Ukraine, Austria, and Europe as a whole. We would never have been able to put together this exhibition itinerary in Vienna in such a short time without the solidarity of Ukrainian artists and their international colleagues, some of whom have direct working relations with Ukraine, others connected by personal experience of the reality of war and the diaspora. Many public and private funding opportunities for this project were not available as the decision to hold the Biennial was taken at such a late stage, although various institutions would in principle have been willing to contribute otherwise. That means that particular thanks are due to those who helped us at such short notice: the Erste Foundation, the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, and the Department of Culture of the City of Vienna as the main sponsors, but also all other Austrian and international institutions, associations, and individuals who have supported us. We would especially like to mention colleagues in the tranzit.org network from Budapest, Bratislava, Bucharest, Cluj, Iași and Prague; all the funds they had earmarked for a large-scale project to celebrate their 20th anniversary as a network of initiatives have been dedicated instead to the Biennial, to which they have also contributed collectively curated artistic positions, adding to the exhibition’s aesthetic polyphony. The Viennese network of “Independent Spaces” self-organized by artists and curators, does likewise with some of their spaces. We would also like to thank the entire Biennale team and the architects of AKT, without whose enormous commitment we would not have been able to realize all this. We understand our contribution to the Kyiv Biennial as an international collaborative artistic-cultural base that aims for long-term cultural and political relevance directed against the Russian aggression in Ukraine and against oppression of any kind, in line with the Biennial’s mission, which states: The Kyiv Biennial is an international forum for art, knowledge and politics, combining exhibitions and platforms for discussion. It adopts an interdisciplinary perspective at the intersection of art, humanities, and political activism in order to reflect on the crucial issues of today’s world. It is in this sense that the Kyiv Biennial 2023 in Vienna is intended as an “introductory gesture.” Serge Klymko, Hedwig Saxenhuber and Georg Schöllhammer Team: Curators: Serge Klymko, Hedwig Saxenhuber, Georg Schöllhammer Managing Director: Michaela Geboltsberger Project Management: Larissa Agel, Esther Brandl Social Media and Communication: Sasha Zaytseva Public Relations: Kathrin Luz, Neumann Luz Network &Nadia Fatnassi, Close Encounters, Gerald Radinger & Maribel Königer Curatorial Assistants: Oleksandra Horbatiuk, Renea Begolli Key Visual: Stefaniia Bodnia, Alyona Ciobanu Exhibition Design: AKT Production: production_vienna.com Art Handling: must – museum standards, hotter&wronn AV Technology: Michael Krupica Exhibition technology: Peter Auenhammer, Eidotech GmbH, Gutenart, MTAB Danmark A/S, Tischlerei Markus Pucher, Jakob Hütter Booklet Editor: Christian Höller Design: Andreas Wesle Proofreading/Translations: Helen Ferguson, Marta Hosovska, Iris Weißenböck

Program