NOW/HERE at FRANZ JOSEFS KAI 3

Artists: Andy Boot, Marilia Furman, Flora Hauser, Raphael Hefti, Alicja Kwade, Lisa Oppenheim, Sarah Pichlkostner, Lucia Elena Prusa, Fred Sandback, Max Schaffer, Sarah Schönfeld, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Iris Touliatou

Exhibition title: NOW/HERE

Curated by: Marlies Wirth

Concept by: Marlies Wirth and Andreas Duscha

Venue: FRANZ JOSEFS KAI 3, Vienna, Austria

Date: January 30–February 21, 2016

Photography: Björn Segschneider, images copyright and courtesy of the artists and FRANZ JOSEFS KAI 3, Vienna

Following the exhibition ELSEWHERE. Observations on Islands (2015), an exposé on “insularity” as a paradigm of openness, pluralism and the relational idea of an „elsewhere“, the exhibition NOW/HERE proposes a multifaceted case study of the ephemeral.

The ephemeral must not be hastily judged as the opposite of longevity and sustainability. Much rather is it the epitome of the preciousness of one specific moment in time and a poetic reminder of infinity being merely a concept of the mathematical sciences. Per definition the notion of “ephemerality” or “evanescence” is commonly summed up in the sample sentence: “the evanescence of vapor, of a dream, of earthly plants or hope”.

The exhibition touches on the idea of value in an accelerated society, resulting in instant consuming and instant forgetting, while preserving every step on the way in the digital archive of the internet. Value is shifting, invisibly, and invisible are the tracks we are leaving while moving through space and time. Resources are burnt asynchronously and are a constant reminder of the significance of the ephemeral and its consequences.

It‘s “here” and “now”, and nowhere else.