25 Jahre Generali Foundation

Ausstellungsansicht: White Cube/Black Box. Skulpturensammlung - Video, Installation, Film, 1996 © Generali Foundation. Foto: Werner Kaligofsky

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2013 ist ein besonderes Jahr für die Generali Foundation. Sie feiert ihr 25-jähriges Bestehen und legt damit auch Zeugenschaft ab für eine bestimmte Art der Kunstgeschichtsschreibung, an der sie mit ihrer Arbeit teilhat.

Jubiläen implizieren die Tendenz, Bilanz zu ziehen, abzuwägen, Kritik anzubringen und letztlich auch dazu, zu feiern. Für die Generali Foundation wird das 25-jährige Jubiläum ein Anlass sein, während des ganzen Jahres die Sammlung in verschiedenen Interpretationen zu präsentieren und andererseits darüber zu reflektieren, wie sich die Institution seit ihren Anfängen im expandierenden, sich verändernden Wiener und internationalen kulturellen Umfeld gewandelt hat. Expert_innen und Künstler_innen werden eingeladen, über die Verortung institutionskritischer Arbeit heute nachzudenken – bezogen sowohl auf die Ausstellungs- und Publikationstätigkeit als auch auf die Schwerpunkte der Sammlung. Mit anderen Worten, wir wollen anlässlich des Jubiläums überlegen, wie sich im Laufe der 25 Jahre bestimmte Werte und Parameter verändert haben, welche Fragen noch aktuell sind und welche sich neu aufgetan haben, ob und inwiefern die Institution mit gegenwärtigen Diskursen Schritt gehalten hat und sich ihnen in angemessener Weise stellt. Die Generali Foundation ist mittlerweile eine konstante Größe in Österreich geworden, aber sie hat auch international als Institution mit ihrem spezifischen Fokus Bekanntheit erlangt. Sie – und damit der Konzern Generali – hat mit ihrem Programm und ihrer Tätigkeit einen bildungspolitischen Auftrag übernommen, der aus der österreichischen Kulturlandschaft nicht mehr wegzudenken ist. Mit ihrer Arbeit liefert die Generali Foundation einen wertvollen Beitrag zu den Fragestellungen der Zivilgesellschaft, der über einen in Mode gekommenen Kulturkonsum hinausgeht.

Drei Perspektiven, drei AusstellungenDie Herausforderungen, die an eine dem Bildungsauftrag verpflichtete Institution gestellt werden, sollen in der Auseinandersetzung mit  Künstler_innen, Kurator_innen, Theoretiker_innen und im Austausch mit dem Publikum in diesem Jubiläumsjahr diskutiert werden. Drei internationale Kurator_innen – Guillaume Désanges,Helmut Draxler und Gertrud Sandqvist – werden aus ihrer spezifischen Sicht die Sammlung, die Institutions- und Ausstellungspolitik der Generali Foundation und damit ihre Art, Geschichte anhand institutioneller Arbeit zu schreiben, in äußerst unterschiedlichen Präsentationsformen darstellen. Die verschiedenen Perspektiven, die die Kurator_innen beleuchten, ihre Fragen zu den Definitionen der sogenannten Konzeptkunst oder – weiter gefasst – Kunst konzeptueller Ausrichtung, zum Sammeln und zum Kuratieren derselben sowie Überlegungen zum Verhältnis von konzeptuellen, auch historischen Strategien des Displays und den künstlerischen Arbeiten an sich bilden den Ausgangspunkt für alle weiteren Diskussionen und Vorträge des Jubiläumsjahres.

Webseite und MediathekDie Generali Foundation hat 1995 als eine der ersten Kunstinstitutionen in Österreich eine Homepage konzipiert – zeitgleich mit der Eröffnung des neuen Gebäudes in der Wiedner Hauptstraße. 2013 wird eine neue Webseite den Internetauftritt ablösen, wie er sich seit 2003/2004 mit einer Darstellung aller Kunstwerke der Sammlung und mit einer Online-Abfrage des Bibliothekskatalogs präsentierte. Die Seite wird nicht nur die Sammlung mit allen Künstler_innen und Werken umfassen, sondern auch insgesamt nutzer_innen-freundlich gestaltet sein und eine Reihe von Interaktionsmöglichkeiten bieten. 
Die Mediathek, die im Studienraum öffentlich zugänglich ist, stellt einen wesentlichen Aspekt der Sammlung dar, da deren gesamte Filme und Videos von Künstler_innen wie Gottfried Bechtold, VALIE EXPORT, Dan Graham, Harun Farocki, Elke Krystufek, Gordon Matta-Clark, Martha Rosler, Heimo Zobernig und vielen anderen individuell durch die Besucher_innen abrufbar sind. Ab 2013 werden auch Veranstaltungen, die seit den 1990er Jahren in der Generali Foundation stattgefunden haben – Vorträge, Symposien, Künstler_innengespräche, Führungen und Performances –, für Besucher_innen auf zwei Terminals im Studienraum zugänglich sein.

Archaeologists Uncover Rare Leather from Ancient Chariot

1. Archaeologists Uncover Rare Leather from Ancient Chariot
2. Salima Ikram is working with an international team to reconstruct a replica of the chariot using ancient Egyptian technology
3. Nearly 300 leather fragments from an ancient Egyptian chariot, believed to date back to the New Kingdom, have been recently uncovered from the depths of the Egyptian Museum by a team of renowned archaeologists. Studying the technology and resources utilized in the building of such chariots, the team aims to reconstruct an ancient Egyptian royal chariot in 2014, using the same technology as that used by the ancient Egyptians.
4. “The discovery of such leather fragments is extremely rare and unusual,” said Salima Ikram, professor of Egyptology, who is among the team of archaeologists working to unravel the mysteries behind these recently uncovered leather portions. “Only a handful of complete chariots are known from ancient Egypt, and of these, only one heavily restored in Florence, and that of Yuya and Tjuiu in the Egyptian Museum, have any significant amount of leather. Even then, they are largely unembellished and not as well-preserved as the fragments we found.”
5. Although horse-drawn chariots are often illustrated in ancient Egyptian artwork, archaeological evidence that goes beyond wooden frames is scarce. Due to their organic nature, leather fragments seldom survive. “The pieces were in a much better shape than we originally anticipated, and we were able to achieve a sense of how the leather unfolds,” said Ikram. “The fine condition that the leather was in suggests that it may have been preserved in a tomb. Leather finds from urban contexts such as Amarna, although still relatively good compared to those from many sites elsewhere in the world, usually show signs of disintegration, are brittle and, overall, in far worse condition.”
6. In constructing an exact replica of the chariot, Ikram and the team aim to gain an understanding of the construction technology and the leather used in its fabrication, as well as to test hypotheses about the uses of the different pieces of leather, which may prove to be a challenging endeavor. “Some leather pieces are folded over in a crumpled state, and the reconstruction of certain portions while trying to maintain accuracy in reproducing the technologies used might be more difficult than we anticipate,” said Ikram.
7. Back in 2008, Ikram commenced work with Andre Veldmeijer, head of the Egyptology section at the Netherlands Flemish Institute in Cairo, on the Ancient Egypt Leatherwork Project, when they came across a 1950s publication by Robert Jacobus Forbes titled Studies in Ancient Technology. The manuscript spoke of a black and white photograph of ancient trappings and horse harnesses, evidently intact and said to exist at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Intrigued by Forbes's findings, Ikram and Veldmeijer sought the help of museum curators to locate a cache of leather trays pertaining to an Egyptian chariot, including parts of the bow-case.
8. Ikram and Veldmeijer sought to document, examine and conduct analytical studies of the technology and resources utilized. They categorized the leather into two main groups based on color and sturdiness: red and green fine leather, and beige and green robust leather. Some of the uncovered leather pieces were highly decorated with leather appliqué work, while others were plainer. The leather fragments have been numbered and described, and include nave hoops, neck straps, gauntlets and parts of the bow-case. The remnants evidently comprised all parts of the chariot. “Everything we saw about the chariot leather was new,” affirmed Ikram. “It presented a revelation on how the chariot was put together, the technologies and materials used. Our examinations also disclosed how drawstrings served as the means of securing leather components over the skeleton of the chariot.”
9. By closely examining the findings, Ikram hopes to be able to better situate them within the backdrop of Egyptian chariotry. The Egyptian Museum Chariot Project findings fit in with a larger multidisciplinary and holistic research venture on leatherwork in ancient Egypt, which also includes the study of other fragmentary chariot pieces, such as those originating from the tombs of Thutmose IV (Carter and Newberry, 1904), Amenhotep II (Daressy, 1902) and Amenhotep III (Littauer and Crouwel, 1985, 1968 and 1987), as well as the leather finds from the Amarna period (Veldmeijer, 2010). This larger project is directed by Veldmeijer and Ikram.
10. “Chariots changed the way people looked at terrains and the way they interacted with them,” said Ikram. “Before the chariot, transportation means in ancient Egypt were limited to boats, donkeys and walking. It introduced the notion of roadways for faster wheel conveyance, revolutionizing the way Egyptians moved through the landscape and pioneering means of transportation and warfare.”
11. Aside from peaceable pursuits, the chariot was closely linked to the military, providing a moving platform from which the archer could shoot at the enemy. Hunting is also repeatedly depicted as a favorite sport of Egyptian royalty and nobility, and both are frequently represented pursuing desert games while riding in their chariots. Chariot processional scenes are believed to be popular from the 18th Dynasty onward, where the triumphant pharaoh is often shown to be returning alone from the battlefield.
12. From ancient eras to contemporary times, Ikram believes that chariots denoted one of the earliest personal transport concepts known to mankind. “The chariot is the precursor to the car,” she said. “The ancient Egyptians used it in the same way in which early motorized vehicles were used by us.”
13. Photo caption: Salima Ikram and Andre Veldmeijer retrieve extraordinary leather fragments of an ancient chariot from abandoned casings at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

NICOLE EISENMAN

Nicole Eisenman / MATRIX 248

May 3, 2013 - July 14, 2013

Nicole Eisenman: Beer Garden with Ulrike and Celeste, 2009; oil on canvas; 65 x 82 in.; Hall Collection. Photo courtesy Leo Koenig, Inc., New York.

MATRIX 248 showcases the work of New York–based artist Nicole Eisenman (b. 1965), who became prominent in the 1990s and has been steadfastly expanding dialogues surrounding painting and drawing ever since. Having come of age in the East Village in the 1980s, Eisenman’s work reflects myriad sources both art historical and popular, culling from what writer and critic Lynne Tillman has referred to as a “vast image bank” that ranges from eighties punk ephemera to canonical works from the history of art. Parisian cafe settings found in late nineteenth-century paintings by Manet and Degas become open-air beer gardens one might find in present-day Berlin or Brooklyn, with the smartphones on the tables locating the scene in time. Intermixing styles associated with American Regionalism and the Italian Renaissance with German Expressionism, Eisenman brings history to bear in her canvases and drawings, yet twists the imagery to infuse these familiar forms with her own incisive social commentary and aesthetic voice.

Gender and suggestions of romantic liaisons remain open questions in most of Eisenman’s compositions. The articulated muscular (female) figure has predominated in her oeuvre. She filters the heroic style of Michelangelo through her feminist and lesbian subject matter, yet in recent years her work has become more abstract and less overtly narrative, encompassing psychological ambiguity and looser painterly forms. Decidedly contemporary, her dark, moody genre scenes remain moored in universal themes of everyday life: politics, romance, the economy, social gatherings, and isolation. This exhibition focuses on a selection of paintings and prints that the artist has made over the last several years that coalesce around the theme of economic and social hardship.

In conjunction with MATRIX 248, BAM/PFA presents Ballet of Heads, a thematic group exhibition drawn from the collection that explores the polymorphous nature of the figure in art history. The selection includes important Eisenman influences such as George Grosz and William Hogarth.



Nicole Eisenman / MATRIX 248 is organized by Apsara DiQuinzio, curator of modern and contemporary art and Phyllis C. Wattis MATRIX Curator. The MATRIX Program is made possible by a generous endowment gift from Phyllis C. Wattis and the continued support of the BAM/PFA Trustees.