Invitation to the Defense of Bernhard Garnicnig

The Examination Panel is made up of: Ruth Sonderegger (chair), Axel Stockburger (supervisor), and Rachel Mader (external appraiser).

Abstract

Practices of Relation explores the conceptualization of artists’ practices that have recently emerged in critical relation to institutions. Given the increasing demand for artists to provide critical quasi-services to institutions and the incentives for artists to adapt their practices to a context in which art organizations claiming institutional status are proliferating, it is necessary to shift the analytical perspective to the relationship between practices and institutions. This is addressed in this thesis by examining how patterned activity and the emergence of institutions from patterns of cognition and practice are linked. The resulting analytical framework is rooted in the history of the museum as reified cognitive infrastructure and the history of conceptual artists' practices stemming from institutionalized art education. It offers a differentiated engagement with the concept of institutions in artists’ practices, in particular why artists and activists consider them "sites worth seizing" through practices involving the critical study of institutions, self-organization, and emancipatory imitation.

The thesis begins with a survey of the concepts of institutions found in recent attempts to historicize institutional critique. It then analyzes the concept of institutions across different fields of discourse, particularly on cognitive and truth-making powers of institutions in the work of sociologist-anthropologist Mary Douglas, and in the political history of museums. Through a case study of the Museum of Capitalism, the thesis then examines the conceptualization of emancipatory forms of imitation, such as prefiguration, anticipatory representation, and over-affirmation, which are at the core of critical practices emerging in relation to institutions. Finally, the thesis proposes clusters of analytical components for the conceptualization of practices. These are grouped by additive processes such as corporate redesign, subtractive strategies such as refusal, maintenance as political work, and institutionalized appropriation. I will argue that these must be understood not as means to an end, but as expressions of attitudes as part of artists’ work. In the conclusion, this is situated in a wider contemporary phenomenon where the proliferation of organizations claiming institutional status is part of a renegotiation of powers over the making of truth, among which artists’ practices employing forms of emancipatory imitation of institutionality become a mode of subjectivation through practices of relation.

Short biography

Bernhard Garnicnig is an artist, researcher, and educator who studied Digital Art and Performative Sculpture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam. His practice is invested in a number of long-term and experimental works that investigate the relations between artists and institutions, including continentcontinent.cc, a collectively edited journal for thinking through media (est. 2011–2020); Palais des Beaux Arts Wien, a historic surface dedicated to the projection of past, present, and future alike (est. 2014); Bregenz Biennale, a festival for ephemeral public art in the town he was born (est. 2012); Supergood, a consulting brand in the ambiguous field between product and performance (2015-2019), and Artist Project Group (est. 2021), a working group investigating performative knowledge practices and the consulting industry. 

Garnicnig has lectured New Media Art at the University of Art and Design Linz since 2017 and Institutional Theory at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (2023). His research includes the SNF-funded project "Institutions as a Way of Life" and contributions to the research group “Decolonizing Digital Archives” at IXDM HGK Basel and a visiting scholarship at The New School, New York (2019) and as contributor to memeclass.worldwide. He currently serves on the board of Künstlerhaus Thurn & Taxis and Berufsvereinigung Bildender Künstler_innen Vorarlberg.

His work has been exhibited internationally, with notable shows including “Technosphere 1948” at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin "What Can Artists Do Now?" at Galerie Thoman, Vienna, "MHYTNIX" at Diagonale and WRO Media Art Biennale, and “Supergood” at MAAT Lisboa. He has participated in residencies worldwide, from the Philippines to Brazil and Gargellen. Garnicnig's writings appear in publications such as "The Critical Makers Reader" (2020), "e-flux education Classroom" (2021), and "MARCH" (2023), focusing on art, technology, and institutional theory.

The thesis defense will be in English and will take place at the Academy of fine Arts at Schillerplatz 3, 1010 Vienna, in room Raum M20.

We are looking forward to welcoming you.