“Mutadis Mutandis” at Secession

Mutadis Mutandis (Babak Afrassiabi, Edgar Arceneaux, Hany Armanious, Louidgu Beltrame, Elisabetta Benassi, Andrea Branzi, Luke Fowler, Suzanne Treister)
29 June 2012–2 September 2012, Secession,Vienna; curated by Cathrine David

During my trips to Vienna, the Secession was one of my recent discoveries. After seeing
David Claerbout, Stephan Dillemuth and Slavs and Tartars in June, I returned this July for the Mutadis Mutandis group exhibition. While last time, the three artists were separated into three separate shows without much relation among them (Stephan Dillemuth even establishing his own side entrance to the Secession building), this time it was indeed a group show, with a thought-through selection of artists. The strength of this show was in the lack of some simplistic theme or topic. If one seeks any common denominator of the works, it would be the questioning of the truth itself and a destabilization of the boundaries between objectivity and subjectivity. Another highly positive feature was a choice of artists that have so far been not much present inAustria andCentral Europe.

The show was curated by Cathrine David, who was the artistic director of Documenta 10 (1997), which links this entry nicely to my review of this year’s Documenta (13).

Each artist’s work was displayed in an individual space, allowing proceeding sequentially through the exhibition. This was necessary, as each of the artworks or installations was to a large extent quite complex in its own references. On the entrance level, the central space was reserved for Andrea Branzi. Left and right, separated by walls, drawings by Suzanne Treister have been displayed. At the back of the same floor, a separate room has been given to Edgar Arceneaux. On the upper floor, there was one projection room for Luke Fowler’s movie, while on the lower floor individual viewing rooms have been set up for the works of Babak Afrassiabi, Elisabetta Benassi, Hany Armanious and Louidgi Beltrame. Out of those, only the work of Hany Armanios seemed a bit tucked away, in the ‘hallway’ to Louidgi Beltrame’s work, but I think it was a difficult task to do otherwise with this artwork given the simple materials it was made of.

Andrea Branzi represented an older generation of artists (born in 1938), his artwork is sculpture (interior architecture) based. The sculptures on display were hovering between spatial arrangements of objects and stages for imagining stories. As some of the other works: hard to grasp, but engaging, with layers of materials and meaning.

Suzanne Treister’s work deviated from other artworks in its medium: Minute large-scale drawings, kind of mind maps, which however had strong overall structure. This meant that they communicated at distance through the overall layout of elements, and drew the viewer towards a closer inspection, which allowed reading of individual lines of text that the images were comprised of. The actual content was a detailed investigation of the post-world-war-2 military-industrial complex, including facts, rumors and imaginative elements.

Edgar Arceneaux’s mixed media installation was less ‘readable’ however it was still impressive. The artworks were floating somewhere between fantasy and reality, sometimes referencing real-world events or memories, and at other times dreams and aspirations.

Luke Fowler’s documentary occupied the top-floor of Secession. It was a quasi-documentary about a psychiatrist (R.D. Laing), pieced together from archival materials and reenactments. While it could have been interesting, I lacked the patience to watch this feature-length (93 minutes movie) on the gallery bench. I understood why the curator chose it, as it related to the overall topic of questioning the truth, which was happening once again in (at least) two layers here: Once in the editing process, and once in the contents of R.D. Laings work that was presented in the film material itself.

Babak Afrassiabi’s video plays with the documentary working mode. It documents the events of an arson committed in an Iranian cinema in the seventies. There are multiple layers of meaning: personal responsibility, political responsibility, the role of ideology in cinematography, etc. While the events are remote and disconnected from the viewer, the video succeeds in engaging the viewer. The questioning of political authority and the role of media reminded me of Harun Farocki’s works about the Romanian revolution, however Afrassiabi’s work’s ethical dimension was much more concentrated onto an individual rather than on the medium itself as in Farocki’s work.

Elisabetta Benassi’s work referenced the topic of the archive. Hand-written notes on library cards and back-side annotations of photos have been elevated into the primary source of meaning. They were carefully catalogued on microfiche and displayed, including the microfiche viewing machine that projects the images: A work about remembering and forgetting, about the official and unofficial, the published and the unpublished.

Hany Armanious’ work was a very minimalist constellation of architectural elements that was hard to grasp. I believe it was a game with different materials and the cultural connotations that they carry. Executed in ‘arte povera’ materials (construction materials), it evaded any firm definition.

Louidgi Beltrane’s movie Cinelandia was a bit too straightforward: 16 mm film footage of Oscar Niemeyer’s villa form the Amazon jungle (culture versus nature topic), accompanied by read text excerpts from an unused script of Antonioni (the so-called adding ‘another layer of meaning’ approach). In addition, the film images were rather blurry and unspecific, as was the whole impression of the artwork.

The artworks were quite varied in media and meaning, and produced different reactions. The tension between variety and similarity was one of the achievements of the exhibition. There was a richness of meaning, and given enough time, I believe each of them, even the artworks which I let down in the text above, would unfold its hidden meaning and beauty.

As I did not take any photos during the exhibition, I photographed the images from the A6-sized mini-catalogue which every visitor received, which was by the way a very good idea. Minimalist in design, it contained all the essential information about the exhibition including an illustrative picture: A nice thing to take away, much nicer than the usual photocopy sheets.