Handspells. Kunsthalle Wien Prize 2021

Kunsthalle Wien Prize is a cooperation of Kunsthalle Wien with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the University of Applied Arts Vienna

For the first time, the exhibition showcasing the winners of the 2021 Kunsthalle Wien Prize will take the form of a group presentation, gathering eight artists: Anna Spanlang and Diana Barbosa Gil – winners of the first prize – as well as Cho Beom-Seok, Jojo Gronostay, and Nora Severios and Ana Gurashvili, Lukas Kaufmann, and Chin Tsao. Kunsthalle Wien decided to open the prize to a larger selection of artists in order to represent a wider spectrum of artistic positions among the graduates of both art academies. The new constellation privileges the many over the few and the collective over the individual.

The exhibition takes as a background assumption that we humans are connected to everything else and that the process of shaping and cherishing connections beyond the affect and experience economy is at the core of artist practice. What does it mean to be a connecting body in the world, to be politically and psychologically as well as culturally determined? How to connect beyond normalized and socially sanctioned bindings – often based on domination and extraction – and how to repair damaged connections?

Curator: Anne Faucheret

Artists: Diana Barbosa Gil, Cho Beom-Seok, Ana Gurashvili, Jojo Gronostay, Lukas Kaufmann, Nora Severios, Anna Spanlang, Chin Tsao