Milo Rau at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen

Artist: Milo Rau

Exhibition title: Warum Kunst?

Venue: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland

Date: November 17 – December 18, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen

The Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen is pleased to present the exhibition «Warum Kunst?» (engl. «Why art?») by Milo Rau. The show looks back on 15 years of art and activism by the theatre director and author who grew up in St.Gallen. His activities and projects range from the controversial action City of Change advocating for the introduction of voting rights for foreigners in St.Gallen, to the people’s trials in Moscow and Zurich. He has also opened a film school in Mosul/IQ and last year created the film Das Neue Evangelium, a contemporary reimagining of the Passion of the Christ. Prompted by Rau’s work, the exhibition poses fundamental questions: How does radical, socially engaged art operate? Is a global, transnational art possible? What are microecologies? Can art change the world, or: why art at all?

The exhibition will feature video and film works, installations, and archival materials, placing different projects in relation to one another. This will give the audience a deeper insight into Rau’s visual laboratory, artistic thinking and political activism. Familiar but also new and surprising aspects of Rau’s work can be experienced in the exhibition.

On 17 November, 2022 Milo Rau will receive the Great Culture Prize of the St.Gallen Kulturstiftung, which honours “his diverse, internationally renowned, significant and courageous works”. The Kunst Halle is very pleased to offer another platform to present his groundbreaking artistic practice.

Milo Rau was born 1977 in Berne and studied sociology, Romance languages and literature and German studies in Paris, Berlin and Zurich, among others with Pierre Bourdieu and Tzvetan Todorov. Since 2002, he has presented more than 50 plays, films, books and actions in over 30 countries. In 2007 he founded the International Institute of Political Murder (IIPM), and since the season of 2018/19 Milo Rau has acted as the artistic director of NTGent. Rau has received numerous awards, such as the International Theatre Institute’s World Theatre Day Prize in 2016, the youngest artist ever to receive this award, and the Saarbrücken Poetics Lectureship for Drama in 2017. His plays and films have won critics’ awards in over ten countries. In 2018, Milo Rau received the European Theatre Prize for his complete works.

Milo Rau, «Warum Kunst?», exhibition view, 2022. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub

Milo Rau, Das Neue Evangelium, 2019/20. Courtesy: Vinca Films. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub

Milo Rau, «Warum Kunst?», exhibition view, 2022. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub

Milo Rau, Das letzte Abendmahl, 2022, installation modeled after the film Das Neue Evangelium, 2019/20. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub

Milo Rau, Orestes in Mosul, 2019. Courtesy: NTGent. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub

Milo Rau, «Warum Kunst?», exhibition view, 2022. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub

Milo Rau, Das Kongo Tribunal, 2017. Courtesy: Vinca Films. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub

Milo Rau, «Warum Kunst?», exhibition view, 2022. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub

Milo Rau, Hochzeit, 2022; Irma Frei in der Bührle Sammlung, 2022. Courtesy: Moritz von Dungern in collaboration with Schauspielhaus Zürich. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub

Milo Rau, City of Change, 2011. Courtesy: IIPM; Die 120 Tage von Sodom, 2017. Courtesy: Patrick Hunka; Die Zürcher Prozesse, 2013. Courtesy: SRF in collaboration with Theater Neumarkt. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub

Milo Rau, St.Galler Erklärung zur Rückführung der Schepenese Mumie, 2022. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub

Milo Rau, St.Galler Erklärung zur Rückführung der Schepenese Mumie, 2022; Hochzeit, 2022. Courtesy: Moritz von Dungern in collaboration with Schauspielhaus Zürich. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Sebastian Schaub