Short but Sweet with Gleb Amankulov
On selected Tuesday evenings, artists from the exhibition Unfreezing the Scene. Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2022 and art education team meet for a joint discussion on their artistic practice.
Gleb Amankulov (b. 1988, Minsk, Belarus) lives and works in Vienna. He completed his degree at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts in Minsk and at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in sculpture and spatial strategies under Monica Bonvicini and Iman Issa. His works have been shown at Leopold Museum, WAF Galerie, Tanzquartier Wien, Hoast (all in Vienna), and Periscope Salzburg, among others. In 2022, Amankulov received the Academy Prize for his diploma project Stalagmite Eyes, was shortlisted for the Ö1 Talent Grant, and received the Startstipendium bildende Kunst from BMKÖS.
Gleb Amankulov’s temporary assemblies draw attention to the precarious conditions of art production while critically engaging with the places they inhabit. The conceptual logic behind the construction of the pieces is tied to the possibilities of the given place, the available budget, the impossibility of long-term planning, and the infeasibility of keeping the works after the show. Pieces are made from found, bought, and furnished elements, and after their temporary display, they return back to the market or to their respective owners to reclaim their lives as domestic objects. The ephemeral and temporal qualities of the sculptures Serpent Breath challenge rigid power structures, while their focus on Western European design objects critically reflects upon the modernist history of Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz.