Towards the end of the 2000s, self-organized artists’ initiatives experienced a dramatic boom. Project spaces or art associations such as “Clubblumen”, ‟Coco”, “Saprophyt”, “Ve:sch”, “Magazin” or the “fluc” art auctions had and are still having an extremely simulating effect on art production and life on the spot. They have created new public spheres for art activities. The production of alternative/open urban spaces was and still is one of the main concepts of the “fluc” art projects realised by Walter Seidl, Martin Wagner and Ursula Maria Probst (me). Besides the broadening of common art concepts, the co-design of urban sociotropes constituted an essential aspect going beyond the characteristics of an exhibition space or of a cultural living room. Meanwhile the scene is in a state of upheaval and in the midst of a restructuring process. Initiatives such as “Coco”, “Magazin” or “Saprophyt” are now working in a project-oriented way; they have finished or are now finishing their regular exhibition activity and their work on new exhibition concepts in the rooms originally earmarked for it. Instead, other artists such as “Expograph” are now opening their studio spaces or making their apartments available for exhibitions such as Diana Lambert or Nora Rekade. Or the artists’ community around “L’Ocean Licker”, for example, is adapting passageways in the Praterstern, while “Mauve” or the “Schneiderei” are moving into empty rooms. What these various initiatives have in common is that they understand themselves as a platform and field for experimentation for artists and are encouraging cooperation with curators and other art associations, and thus looking for dialogue and communication. Unlike established art institutions or museums, they do not hermetically seal themselves off from each other. The “Kulturdrogerie” has proved the continuity of its activities. The former chemist’s in Gentzgasse 86–88, in Währing, Vienna’s 18th Viennese district, has been serving as a realm for concepts and experiments in artistic works since 2005. Alongside the Franz Brunnerand / Markus Hiesleitner studios, the former sales area of the shop is available as an experimental space for concerts, exhibitions and performances.
Even though the notion of “off space” or “alternative space” have been recoded innumerable times since the 1970s, depending on their contexts – from illegal, subversive squatting to the interstitial solution subsidized by the municipalities – it still lacks a conceptuality capable of confronting the institutional logic of exploitation. In most cases, artist-run spaces or alternative spaces have the advantage that they can act flexibly. However, short-term planning processes are also a consequence of the insecurity about the question of whether the state or the municipality will allocate funding for the following year too. There is still a shortage of private sponsors. But regardless of cultural economic master plans, the busy activities of artists and art associations and their use of empty shop premises, basements, apartments, factories, administrative buildings or market premises across the city indicate the potential, but also the need for exhibition space. In the process, venues are selected that are normally less in the focus of the public or the media attention for art. Unlike the bloated system of art institutions, which depends on subsidies, sponsors and quotas as well as the economic distribution system of galleries and the art market, the non-commercial project spaces are mostly based on individual initiatives by artists, architects or freelance curators. As non-profit organizations, they have the necessary elbow room for spontaneity and the readiness to improvise that the inflexible institutional apparatus often lacks. Unlike galleries, off spaces are not concentrated in central city districts, but they are scattered individually across the city. Even though there are often community or state subsidies for the rent or the project organization, the organizers themselves are in most cases unpaid or receive only a small allowance for expenses. These project spaces differ from the venture company of a gallery because the artists themselves assume the organization, press work, development and networking – thus operating in the form of de-hierarchical multi-tasking. An important motivation here is the desire to determine the content and the relevant concepts of art oneself and to take action against shortcomings and other deficiencies, to take the need for a socio-political discourse in one’s own hands.
In Vienna there is production, discussion, debate and exhibiting. The city has a tempo that permits reflection, is more manageable than Berlin and less hectic than New York or London. But nevertheless, art progresses, one’s breathing accelerates and the energies thus released are astonishing. International artists come from Bulgaria, Turkey, Canada, China, Japan, Korea or the United States and have settled in Vienna. In the past five years, Vienna has grown into a popular art metropolis, but the opportunities offered in the process have remained partly unused. Certainly, Vienna would have the potential to become Europe’s cultural capital, but this image is still subject to change and its cultural policies do not react adequately to the opportunities on offer. Instead of structures for continuity being created, operators of project spaces are still treated like petitioners or their concerns are ignored. Since the middle of the first decade of this century, an ongoing process of self-renewal of the art scenes in Vienna has been under way.
While the Viennese galleries are supported through the cooperative project “curated by” organized by the agency “departure”, which was established by the municipality, unlike Berlin or London despite repeated announcements there still is no functioning agency to exploit the interstices in Vienna. Artists, curators or collectors who would like to use a space for exhibitions or performance projects still have to rely on themselves. In order to reduce the costs or keep them affordable, at the moment, as mentioned above, events are increasingly organized in private studios or apartments. Furthermore, the exchange with others is also sought after, among other things in order to provide a content-related platform for one’s own activities. This approach is based on the quite pragmatic decision to promote one’s own artistic discourse, to co-determine the nomenclature of its values and to span an international network. The association Lafin C’estmerde regards itself as a mediator between contemporary positions and the public and aims at the promotion and networking of female culture producers of all genres in the national and international art scene. The association was founded by the media artists Suzie Léger, Isabella Kohlhuber, Evelyn Loschy, Verena Duerr and Katharina Swoboda. They aim to use empty rooms in Vienna on a temporary basis as opportunities for work and as venues for events. At the moment, the association is based in an empty flat in an old building in Jörgerstraße 17, in Vienna’s 17th district. Furthermore, the “Temporäre Autonome Zone” realised in autumn 2012 was an independent experimental exhibition platform produced by Lisa Ruyter with ff, a group of international women artists, who meet regularly to collaborate on feminist projects.
In the past five years, Vienna has raised its international profile through the influx of international artists and curators, nevertheless the city is still marked by a continual coming and going.
Vienna welcomes its international art clientele with open arms.
Private and institutional artist-in-residence programmes are making a significant contribution to this development.
Ursula Maria Probst lives and works in Vienna. She is a free curator, art critic, artist and art historian. Scientific works on and by Louise Bourgeois, New York. Among other things teaching assignments, workshops, lectures at the University of Art and Design Linz, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the conference Kunst Stadt Berlin. Art critic (among others for Kunstforum International, Spike, Modern Painters, dérive, artmagazine, Umelec, Springerin, Standard), catalogue texts for artists, co-initiator of the collective Female Obsession, DJ-performances. Exhibition projects among others for Fluc Wien, Vienna Art Week, Kunstraum Niederösterreich, k/hausWien, projects for KÖR, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum NÖ, EuropART. Participation in Invisible Play, Istanbul.
Her activities as a curator include in 2012: Predicting Memories (with Robert Punkenhofer), Vienna Art Week; Andere Blicke, andere Räume, k/haus Wien; Projekt 012, Vesch Wien; In der Kubatur des Kabinetts (with Martin Wagner, project realisations since 2002), Fluc Wien; 2011: Jadwiga Sawicka, KÖR Wien; Reflecting Reality (with Robert Punkenhofer), Sigmund Freud Museum; 2010: Mit uns ist kein (National)Staat zu machen (with Walter Seidl), Kunstraum NÖ; Crosssing Limits, Art in Urban Transitions, Vienna Art Week; STATUS QUO VADIS, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum NÖ; Melk In Passing 1-16, k/haus Wien (will be continued); Urban Signs-Local Strategies, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (with Martin Wagner and Walter Seidl), Fluc Wien; 2007: Artmapping 1-2, Fluc Wien; 2006: EuropART (with Walter Seidl); 2005: The Sound of your Eyes k/haus Wien; 2004: Born to be a Star, k/haus Wien.
