Kunst am Kanal – Art into the (Danube) flow

As you may know, Vienna is a city that developed in the proximity of the Danube. A former arm of it, the Donaukanal (Danube Canal) delimits the city centre, and it is a cozy urban yet green place to hang out, especially during summer. Along its path there are free areas for making graffiti, public vegetables gardens, outdoor exhibitions, many small and bigger bars, and the most interesting clubs (for example Grelle Forelle, which I mentioned more than once previously). And many different music and art events take place here, free events where people can gather in a chill setting.

Couple of weeks ago it was Kunst am Kanal, Art on the Canal, organized by the club Das Werk in cooperation with its two art ateliers, Lichtbogen 334, the nest of the visual artists from the collective 4youreye projectionArt, and Dachsbau, a co-working space for artists to rent and exhibit their work. Das Werk means “the factory”, but also “the art work”, and that’s what this club promotes aside from music.

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Dachsbau and Lichtbogen 334, side on the Kanal

Contemporary art can be easily seen as snobbish, due to its hermetic messages and aesthetics, the high prices and the steered value, not necessarily based on pure talent (see my post about Roberta Sinatra and her study that analyses the trends in the art business). It’s the underground facet, instead, that can offer a glimpse of closeness to a wider audience and become part of a bigger context, integrating into the surrounding of music, drinks and good vibes. The final result is not individual anymore, rather a sum of different contributions, styles, perceptions, points of view; and the location, even if the same one, acquires each time a new unique appearance.

Moreover, these events can also give the possibility to minor and free-time artists, or simply creative talents, to express themselves: collaborations and projects can bloom, most likely not for decorating a fancy loft, rather for creating a collective experience.

Noemi
Noemi Kiss, Galerie Helmut, Das Werk (pic by Noemi Kiss)

The new huge graffiti of two hands exposing the teeth of a ferocious dog was mapped by the visualists collective 4youreye for projecting colourful visuals that gave a whole different feeling of it; at Werk a new exhibition space offered a solo from Noémi Kiss, an architect and philosopher (and woman that I deeply admire) who rose in the last six years as conceptual artist, using simple and poor materials (concrete, carpets as example) to give them new shape and purpose. In this occasion she presented five different reinterpretations of three-dimensionality recreated on beautiful antique Persian carpets hung on the walls, creating a door –or a window– for the viewer to look into.
And then much more is offered, involving all different forms of performative arts, and the music: live concerts during the daylight, dj sets at night, offering a wide range of styles and sound.

Eckhart Derschmidt
Kunst am Kanal 2019 (pic from Facebook by Eckhart Derschmidt)

A special paragraph deserves Lichtbogen 334, with its dark ambience particularly fitting to the projections introduced: a “digital mirror” altering colours and movement, that I already mentioned in the post about the Playground Festival; a panel with two plaster cast faces emerging out of it, one happy one sad, lightened by changing shapes and patterns; two lysergic skulls decorating the shutters that divide the exposition space from the storage for the 4youreye equipment.

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Haselbusch, Lichtbogen 334

The Kunst am Kanal festival takes place once a year, but still there are many other events where lights, colours and moods mix together to create the special atmosphere that characterises this part of the Kanal. All this arty melting pot just opposite to the District Heating Plant designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, a famous Austrian artist I will definitely talk about, and just adjacent to a complex of buildings ideated by Zaha Hadid, uncompleted due to financial cuts and changes that – rumors say – made the architect not satisfied anymore with the project to the point that she wanted her name dissociated from it. Still, these buildings are masterpieces here for us to admire and, thanks to these occasions, to rediscover in a different light.

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District Heating Plant, Friedensreich Hundertwasser
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Zaha-Hadid-Haus, part of the building complex
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Confessions of a minstrel

Dear readers,

sorry I am not a good blogger. I cannot produce constant content, I write only when something really catches my interest and my attention (and my inspiration too…). I write to promote good art, good music, good events. I overthink my writings, because I want them to be precise, well written, of high quality. On the Internet, as a blogger (although I don’t feel this label so much) among million bloggers, I choose quality over quantity. I choose to talk about what positively inspires me, I have no interest in openly criticizing something I haven’t appreciated, because I think there is already enough negativity and criticism around and I want to be on the positive side; maybe it simply wasn’t my taste, maybe I didn’t get it –therefore, I won’t recommend it to you.

This said (to slightly justify myself too), it’s summertime here, and I may have partially put aside my hunger for culture; you can still decide to scroll through the old posts and read about Mark Rothko, about the exhibition Beauty from the designers Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh, about the visionary architects and artists Lucio and Duilio Forte, about the interview with Electric Indigo. I am sure you will find something appealing for your taste.

I am taking this time also to rethink about my blog, about what I’ve learned, about what I would like to change or improve. It’s been a year now, and many things have grown!

I would like to conclude with a poem I’ve written some time ago (not yet inserted in my poetry page) that nicely fits to this post. It is still raw, sounds a bit like a song from a minstrel: and minstrel, rather than blogger, is how I feel.

All my gratitude if you have followed me through this, and my warmest welcome if you have just started to read me.

See you the next chapter.

 

How to avoid disappearing

I sit and listen to music.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Nothing
else.
I am wasting my time

because I technically do
nothing.

Tic toc tic toc
Time is running and you are not producing
Tic toc tic toc
Time is passing and you are still unmoved
Wear your coat, get to work,
don’t be absurd
about live for love.

I am totally with you,
I need my dreams to come true.
Reality is tough, though,
even worse than
silence in ropes,
even if I change,
I can’t change.
Even if I change,
why do I?
To conformize?
Why do I?

Modify my shape
Shape my body
Get healthier, more active
Stop compromising

I sit and listen to music.