08 Jul 2009

Sabine Bitter / Helmut Weber: Right, to the City at Landesgalerie Linz

SABINE BITTER / HELMUT WEBER
RIGHT, TO THE CITY*
*with a commentary by Jochen Becker

The Landesgalerie Linz is presenting the most extensive collection of works by Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber to be shown so far in Austria. Since the late 1980s, their joint work has combined a perfectly natural approach to the widest range of media and pictorial technologies with an absolutely contemporary form of conceptual art. In their analytic and research-oriented practice, they follow the process of change and the effects of modernization and globalization on the city, architecture, and the creation of urban space in a great variety of geographical and socio-political arenas. The artists' pictorial production, which repeatedly makes investigations into the interweaving of art, politics and society, is overlaid with analyses of various media and styles in the fields of architecture, film and urbanism. In their projects, Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber provide fundamental contributions to a re-evaluation and visualization of subjects that represent the developments, promises and crises of political and social utopias. At the same time, their artistic work deals with – and reflects on – the power and possibilities of interpretation in connection with the creation of social spaces through pictures.

Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber invited the Berlin critic and curator Jochen Becker to make a personal contribution to their current exhibition. This will be displayed in the fifth hall of the Landesgalerie as a spatial commentary on 'The Modern – The Provider (Versorger Moderne): Red Vienna, New Frankfurt, Hitler Buildings in Linz'.

In addition to the artist’s book: 'Sabine Bitter / Helmut Weber: Autogestion or Henri Lefebvre in New Belgrade'; with an unpublished text of Henri Lefebvre, a foreword by Neil Smith and texts by Ljiljana Blagojevic, Klaus Ronneberger und Zoran Eric. Verlag Fillip, Vancouver und Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2009.

Furthermore, a comprehensive catalogue with views of the presentation and a documentation of the projects shown will be issued at the end of the exhibition. With a documentary of projects by the artists from 1995 until 2009 for expample about Novi Beograd, Caracas, Chicago and Vancouver. With texts by Martin Hochleitner, Clint Burnham, Candice Hopkins, Jeff Derksen and others.

Sabine Bitter, *Aigen in 1960, lives and works in Vienna and Vancouver.
Helmut Weber, *Dorf an der Pram in 1957, lives and works in Vienna.

They have worked together on projects dealing with the city, architecture and the politics of space and representation since 1993 and have been awarded numerous international grants as well as teaching and research contracts.

SABINE BITTER / HELMUT WEBER: RIGHT, TO THE CITY: JULY 9th until SEPTEMBER 13th, 2009

Opening of the exhibition: July 8th at 7 pm

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At the same time at Landesgalerie Linz:

'FROM THE COLLECTION: INTRODUCTION IN THE HISTORY OF ART, vol. 6'

Contemporary works from the collection which refer to the 'masterpieces' of art history are dealing with the question of how appropriation art has developed since the 1980s.
With a site-specific-work – a photographic installation and an artists book – of Katharina Gaenssler, which photographed in the deposits of the Landesgalerie Linz.
Wappensaal: July 9th-August 23rd / Gotisches Zimmer: July 9th until October 26

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Current exhibitions:

'FROM THE COLLECTION: PORTRAITS OF WOMEN BY ALFRED KUBIN'

To mark the 50th anniversary of Alfred Kubin's death and 100 years since the publication of his only, but influential novel Die andere Seite ('The Other Side'), the State Gallery presents a selection of graphic works that especially illuminate the image of women in his work.
until September 13


'LIBRARY OF UNREAD BOOKS – JULIUS DEUTSCHBAUER'  until October 8th