17.09.2023

The dissolution of dichotomies is pending. Radical-rationalists (1) are confident that after Madonna, Lady Gaga means progress. Radical-retreaters (2) do not have either of them on their evaluation spreadsheet, the needle on their measuring device doesn't move in the slightest. The decision of what is considered within the spectrum of the considerable often works through excluding the non-considerable by naming it (1) rather than not naming it (2). A cake from a single ingredient, water, is water (3).

The ones with an official certificate are allowed to retire (1.1), they glance back toward disciplinary societies, with visions of revolutionary communism and a permanent general strike. The ones without a certificate compensate by forming sibling-hoods to protect and approve each other (1.2), they acknowledge societies of control, with visions of postmodern intersectionality and fair payment. (1) don't shit where they eat; (2) do; (3) eat their own shit and it's delicious because it has everything they know and want, including self-reflection.

A home where authentically grown values and organically evolved community norms replace deliberate acts of will and social justice. A house locked from the inside, where pre-existing opinions govern and creativity only emerges spontaneously. Where artistic practice forms alliances with reproductive labor and irrelevant ideas are revived and updated. Together they evolve into ever-expanding and open-ended chosen families. As if the concept of the canteen and the elderly home did not exist.

In spring there was the theater as a model, this fall there is the elderly home and the canteen. The fire under the stove will be put out and friends extinguished. Problem – 23 refers to a time when autonomous thought would have caused surprise and intuition was not imagined, let alone individual expression.

14.03.2023

We are confronted with a decision between (1) radical rationalization of artistic practice, which would mean fair payment and the revolutionary destruction of the autonomy-of-the-economy, and (2) radical retreat into a serious artistic practice, which would mean the exit from the logic of reward and the individualized false promise of an outside to the autonomy-of-the-economy. Or, put differently, unconditional love must be either paid for, or free for all. Both approaches exist and are equally attractive. As a consequence of the impossibility of the fulfillment of their respective claims: simply, the ability of (1) 'political action' or (2) a 'serious practice,' the application of either of these two ideals leads to the withdrawal from the field of visual arts and its institutions. Legitimately we mutate into hated enemies, as we continue to work in this field.

Program – 23 begins with the screening of one video file over the course of three evenings at a theater, here replaced with an arbitrary location. It is composed of an over-length feature film that is repeatedly interrupted for the screening of a reoccurring long shot, adaptations of written text, and audio-visual contributions based on moments of mediation. The program refers to a time when a central narrative would have caused surprise and separating walls were not imagined, let alone their subsequent collapse. The lights remain switched on and the bar open. Any conditions that might invite the audience into a self-enclosed fictional world separate from the evenings’ circumstances are avoided.

Our professional milieu is a comfortable home and breeding ground for the possessive individual. At this point, solidarity among artists—members of a naturally corrupt family—seems downright inappropriate. Their identification with and claim for a special status makes it impossible to distinguish moments of solidarity from moments of corruption. We can only hope that the walls of this family home will collapse; (1) will have left the collapsing house in advance, only to be run over by a car on the streets, (2) survives traumatized and subsequently suffers an endless death from slowly inserting a sword into their own wombs, (3) is covered by rubble and dies instantly, without realizing what just happened.

Leslie Bauer, Richard Eß, Maximilian Klawitter

We are confronted with a decision between (1) radical rationalization of artistic practice, which would mean fair payment and the revolutionary destruction of the autonomy-of-the-economy, and (2) radical retreat into a serious artistic practice, which would mean the exit from the logic of reward and the individualized false promise of an outside to the autonomy-of-the-economy. Or, put differently, unconditional love must be either paid for, or free for all. Both approaches exist and are equally attractive. As a consequence of the impossibility of the fulfillment of their respective claims: simply, the ability of (1) 'political action' or (2) a 'serious practice,' the application of either of these two ideals leads to the withdrawal from the field of visual arts and its institutions. Legitimately we mutate into hated enemies, as we continue to work in this field.

Program – 23 begins with the screening of one video file over the course of three evenings at a theater, here replaced with an arbitrary location. It is composed of an over-length feature film that is repeatedly interrupted for the screening of a reoccurring long shot, adaptations of written text, and audio-visual contributions based on moments of mediation. The program refers to a time when a central narrative would have caused surprise and separating walls were not imagined, let alone their subsequent collapse. The lights remain switched on and the bar open. Any conditions that might invite the audience into a self-enclosed fictional world separate from the evenings’ circumstances are avoided.

Our professional milieu is a comfortable home and breeding ground for the possessive individual. At this point, solidarity among artists—members of a naturally corrupt family—seems downright inappropriate. Their identification with and claim for a special status makes it impossible to distinguish moments of solidarity from moments of corruption. We can only hope that the walls of this family home will collapse; (1) will have left the collapsing house in advance, only to be run over by a car on the streets, (2) survives traumatized and subsequently suffers an endless death from slowly inserting a sword into their own wombs, (3) is covered by rubble and dies instantly, without realizing what just happened.

Leslie Bauer, Richard Eß, Maximilian Klawitter