steirischer herbst Research Fellowship Lecture
Lisa Moravec
Sometimes I Think I Was a Parrot, but Then I Realized I am Only a Fish: On „Animal Art“ and Its Contemporary Condition
VALIE EXPORT, Wer begreift hat Flügel (1974), object, at Animal Art, Graz, 1987, photo: Angelika Gradwohl; courtesy of Centre national d’art et de culture Georges-Pompidou, Paris; © VALIE EXPORT, Bildrecht Wien, 2021, courtesy of the artist
In 1987, steirischer herbst festival produced the first large provocative survey of art made with animals. The exhibition Animal Art was curated by artist Richard Kriesche under the artistic director Peter Vujica and explored bodily animality within society. Kriesche assembled the work of about forty renowned international and national artists made with living animals in different media (performance, music, objects, film, photography) in the early second half of the 20th century. Bodily animality particularly features in the exhibited work of Austrian women and men artists from and around the Viennese Actionists. In her talk, Lisa Moravec focuses on the curatorial process and public reception of the exhibition, and the work of the exhibited Austrian artists to investigate the relation between animal activism and body politics. If working with animals in art is at core a political question that aims at defending “the living,” then steirischer herbst ’87 and other animal works that it exhibited throughout its existence offer a point for departure to reconsider the sociopolitical relevance of the festival today through a close engagement of its archive.
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Lisa Moravec works at the intersection of the performing and visual arts. Since completing her PhD, she teaches contemporary performance at the University of Vienna in the art history department. She has done editorial work for Photography & Culture and Platform: A Journal for the Dramatic and Performing Arts and published in academic journals (Dance Chronicle, Contemporary Theatre Review), art magazines (PW-Magazine, Texte zur Kunst, Burlington Contemporary, springerin), exhibition catalogues, and in artists’ publications. She recently received a post-doc research grant, located at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.
14.10.22, 17:00
In English
Neue Galerie Graz (Auditorium)
Joanneumsviertel and Neutorgasse 45 (historical entrance)
8010 Graz
♿ Venue accessible for wheelchairs