Red Threads, Loose Ends, Another Sculpture Is Possible
This year, for the first time, the studios in the Academy's Sculpture Building are pleased to invite you to their jointly hosted, symposium-style, lecture-filled one-day event.
How to make, talk about and interpret contemporary sculpture, and how to grasp the complexity of its material, situational, spatial and thematic relationships, are often only the starting points for the many discussions that take place within the context of each studio. The event was created in an attempt to draw together some of these discursive threads and open them up not only within the structures of the Academy, but also to a wider audience. Each of the speakers has been invited by a different studio and its team, thus emphasising the different positions.
After the last lecture, there will be a reception in the student-run 'Laube' space in the building's garden.
Program:
11 h
Lecture by Nancy Lupo
invited by the studio Art and Space | Installation, Prof. Nora Schultz
Nancy Lupo is an artist that is currently based in Berlin. She insists that her practice is intertwined with material culture although it also includes language and considerers ways that collective fantasies, emotions and energies say are embedded into form, mostly inherited but sometimes totally made up. Her last several bodies of work nurture and unfold an obsession with money, the idea of riches and all that shimmers with the possibility of transcendence.
Nancy Lupo received her undergraduate degree from The Cooper Union in New York and her MFA from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. She has participated in many residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Tbilisi Propaganda Residency and Casa Wabi among others Her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries and institutions nationally and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include Irrealis at Veda in Florence and Max Payday at Moran Moran gallery in Mexico City.
13 h
Lecture by Ivan Juarez
invited by the studio Art and Intervention | Environment, Prof. Judith Huemer
Ivan holds a Doctorate in Arts and a Master’s in Landscape Architecture, with a focus on the connections between artistic-design practices, mind ecologies, and environmental aesthetics to address contemporary challenges. As a cross-disciplinary artist, architect, and landscape architect, his practice integrates humanistic and biological concerns. He works at the intersection of practice, research, and teaching, exploring landscapes through various media, geographies, and scales.
He is the founder of x-studio | Ivan Juarez, a multidisciplinary practice that examines art-design disciplines through dialogues between social and biocultural systems and engaging with sensory and nature-based approaches. Ivan has created a diverse range of works across different landscapes around the world, including ecological interventions, landscape acupunctures, low-impact designs, placemaking initiatives, in-situ installations, and participatory projects. His projects also encompass bio-cohabitation spaces, architectural designs, gardens, bodyscapes, sensory devices, and craft pieces.
Ivan’s works have been recognized by multiple international institutions, and he is currently professor and researcher at the Faculty of Planning and Design at the University of Iceland.
14:30 h
Open Lunch with Sustainable Ceramics
Open Lunch with Sustainable Ceramics in Project Room 1, presents a collective ceramics sculpture made from reclaimed clay, excavated from construction sites of Vienna's new subway line. With a finger food buffet, the event integrates art, community and sustainability in a shared space. The project encourages mindful engagement, inviting us to recognize our role in addressing sustainability challenges and positioning us as co-creators with natural systems.
The sculpture was created by Alevtina Lyapunova, Asya Marakulina, Bahareh Rahimi, Gloria Bergner, Julia Stakhorska, Lili Marie Theilen, Luisali Theisen, Maria Milagros Ainchil, Prima Mathawabhan, and Tim Morris Schiffer as part of a lecture project organized by Zahra Mirza and Kristin Weissenberger. The clay was gratefully received from the Department of Architecture.
15:30 h
Lecture by Than Hussein Clark
invited by the studio of Art and Space | Object, Prof. Julian Göthe
Than Hussein Clark (b. 1981, New Hampshire, USA) is a visual artist and theatre director based in London and Glasgow. His work explores economies and histories taken from architecture, the decorative arts, and theatre to explore new trajectories for queer objects and subjectivities in the present. Over the last decade his work has been seen in major public institutions in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States, and has been featured in publications including The Economist, The New York Times, La Republicca, Artforum, Frieze, Mousse, Kaleidoscope, and Flash Art. He holds an MA in Theatre Directing from Royal Holloway University of London, an MFA in Time Based media from Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, a BA in Art Practice from Goldsmiths University of London, and a BA in History of Art from the University of Edinburgh.
In addition to his solo practice, Than Hussein Clark is the founder of The Directors Theatre Writer's Theatre (TDTWT). TDTWT is an international ensemble led by Clark, creating scripted performances for the past 12 years in the UK, Europe, and the US, primarily within the contemporary visual art world. Their performances occur in museums, galleries, theatres, and site-specific locations, blending post-dramatic aesthetics, queer theory, and classic narrative structures like melodrama and serials. Utilizing late-Stanislavsky's active analysis, they form a hybrid of dramatic and post-dramatic theatre, merging director’s and writer’s theatre approaches. In 2019, he founded London Performance Studios in South East London, where he curates the Associate Artist Program, and is currently preparing the launch of a four year cycle of plays. As part of the building's association with Living Pictures, Than has led on the development of a series of workshops and conversations with international theatre practitioners, including David Chambers (Yale University), Elen Lauren (Juilliard), and Sharon Marie-Carnicke (USC). In 2012, he co-founded the London - New York based publishing house Montez Press and acts as the editor-at-large. He sits on the advisory board of Montez Press Radio and was a founding member of Villa Design Group.
17:30 h
Lecture by Katinka Bock
invited by the studio Art and Space | Spatial Strategies, Prof. Iman Issa
Katinka Bock’s work is rooted in a discursive thought of sculpture and language. The shape is often a result of a working process where the rational and the unforeseen meet each other. She develops a body of work in sculpture, installation and photography that dialogues with architecture, uses and environments. She creates dialogues between materials, their stories and those of the encountered contexts. She takes care of the balances and imbalances of spaces and atmospheres, fully integrating the dimension of scenography into her work.
Each of her installations defines a space and often seems to wrestle against the claustrophobia of the exhibition spaces; tending to open doors, windows, walls, holes by which to escape, or to let in rain or air.
19 h
Closing Reception at Die Laube in the garden