NEW NEEDS at The Wittmann House

Artists: Daphne Ahlers, Minda Andrén, Nadja Athanassowa, Anna-Sophie Berger, Juliette Bonneviot , Dora Budor, Adrian Buschmann, Tatjana Danneberg, Verena Dengler , Aleksandra Domanović, Flaka Haliti , HHDM with Lucia Stamati + Cathrin Ulikowski , Kathi Hofer, Nora Kapfer, Adriana Lara, Lonely Boys, Sarah Ortmeyer, Ivan Pérard, Lucia Elena Prusa, Hanna Putz, Jon Rafman, Rosa Rendl, Martyn Reynolds, Halvor Rønning, Signe Rose, Lennart Schweder , Lilli Thießen, Dena Yago, Min Yoon, Marcin Zarzeka

Exhibition title: NEW NEEDS

Curated by: Rosa Rendl & Isabella Ritter

Venue: The Wittmann House, Etsdorf, Kamp, Austria

Date: May 23 – July 25, 2015

Photography: Tina Herzl, images courtesy of the artists and the Wittmann House

NEW NEEDS takes place at the Wittmann House (bui l t 1970-75) designed by Austrian archi tect Johannes Spalt.

Johannes Spalt’s oeuvre can be classified as belonging to the „Third Generation“ of Modernists whose achievement it was to re-establish references to architectural history (especially achievements of High Cultures in Asia and the Orient) which Modernism had broken with before. Lightness, the constructive, the modular, the umbrella and skin are constitutive as wel l as recurring motives in Spalt’s vocabulary, which are also protagonists in the architectural language of the Wittmann House.

The exhibition aims to create a dialogue between the works and the architecture of the house in order to fathom potent ial contemporary meanings of Spalt ’s principles which were visionary at their time. Within the exhibition each work should open up its own cosmos of references and meanings of the former.

What meaning do concepts as lightness, the constructive, the modular, poetry and folly have today; how can they be thought of today against the backdrop of the digital era? How are terms as umbrella and skin understood in view of an increasing disembodiment? How can challenging visions and experimentat ions manifest themselves today?

Is it possible to speak of new needs?