Bereits zum vierten Mal findet der Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory statt, heuer erstmals in Wien. Er wird in Kooperation mit dem Mumok und der Secession veranstaltet.
Die Konferenz zum Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory findet am 6. November von 15 bis 18 Uhr im Mumok statt, es werden unter anderem Miklavž Komelj (Kunsthistoriker, Dichter und Übersetzer aus Ljubljana) und Apolonija Šušteršič (Künstler und Architekt aus Ljubljana and Oslo) aus Slowenien sprechen. Um 22 Uhr beginnt in der Secession die Feier für die Gewinner des Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory.
The Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory honors exceptional cultural achievements by art historians and theorists whose work refers to Central and South Eastern Europe. The Award highlights the notion of arts and culture, encouraging the production of cultural knowledge and exchange between ‘East’ and ‘West’. Igor Zabel (1958-2005), the name generator for this biennial Award, was an influential Slovenian curator, art critic, writer and theorist, the main propagator of his country’s art scene during the 1990s. As the senior curator of Ljubljana’s Moderna galerija, he established cultural links between Eastern and Western Europe. Igor Zabel was, by all means, a role model for new generations of curators and critics of contemporary art. The laureates of this Award, just like Igor Zabel, have brought together specific fields of knowledge and culture, and pointed to the necessity of their omnipresence in human lives. And these are the ideas that the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory cherishes. An international jury made up of one artist, one curator and one theorist appoints the laureate. One of the jury members is always from Slovenia. In addition to the award, three working grants are offered. The laureate gives one of these grants, while the jury decides the other two. With total prize money of EUR 76,000 it is one of the highest and most prestigious prizes for cultural activities related to Central and South Eastern Europe.
- Programme
- Conference. Continuing Dialogues
- Thursday, 6 November 2014, 3 – 6 p.m., Mumok
- Address: Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Vienna
- Igor Zabel took a critical view of “dialogue” as a form. Even though in his activities as a curator, art historian, critic, and writer he always promoted a critical exchange between “East” and “West”, one of his best known articles, entitled Dialogue, provides an analysis of the challenges posed by the problems of translation which to this day inevitably accompany such debates in a Europe that is in a state of transformation.
3 p.m. Welcome and introduction
- 3.30 p.m. Dialogue 1 “Figures and Prefigurations”
- Karel Císař (art theorist and curator, Prague) and Rainer Fuchs (art historian and curator, head of exhibitions and deputy director mumok, Vienna)
- 4 p.m. Dialogue 2 “Der Zeit ihre Kunst. Der Kunst ihre Freiheit”
- Miklavž Komelj (art historian, poet and translator, Ljubljana) and Apolonija Šušteršič (artist and architect, Ljubljana and Oslo)
- 5 p.m. Conversation “Neo-Patriotism and the Options of Dissidentship”
- Keti Chukhrov (art theorist and philosopher, Moscow), Ekaterina Degot (art historian, curator and writer, Cologne and Moscow) and Kirill Medvedev/Free Marxist Press (activist and publisher, Moscow)
- Celebration. Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory 2014
- Thursday, 6 November 2014, 10 p.m., Secession
- Address: Friedrichstraße 12, 1010 Vienna
- The biennial Award honors exceptional cultural achievements by art historians and theorists whose work refers to Central and South Eastern Europe and promotes cultural dialogue. With a total prize money of EUR 76.000 it is one of the highest and most prestigious prizes for cultural activities related to Central and South Eastern Europe.
- The winners are appointed by an international jury. In 2014 members of the jury are: Keti Chukhrov (art theorist and philosopher, Moscow); Rainer Fuchs (art historian and curator, head of exhibitions and deputy director mumok, Vienna); Apolonija Šušteršič, artist and architect, Ljubljana and Oslo).
- Celebration of the winners in a setting by Josef Dabernig (artist, Vienna)
- Music by Lüften (Rainer Binder-Krieglstein und Andreas Fränzl)
- About Igor Zabel (1958–2005, LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA)
- Igor Zabel was during his entire life actively involved in many fields of theory and culture – as an author, essayist, modern and contemporary art curator, literary and art critic, translator, and mentor for new generations of curators and critics of contemporary art. In his theorethical and curatorial work, he tirelessly called for the profound exploration of those political, social and cultural undercurrents that had the potential to give us a better understanding of the modern and contemporary art.
Igor Zabel graduated in comparative literature, art history and philosophy from the University of Ljubljana in 1982. His curatorial work outside Slovenia includes distinguished exhibition Individual Systems at the 50th Venice Biennale, 2003 and, among others, 33rd Zagreb Salon at the Museum and Gallery Centre Zagreb, 1998; Aspects/Positions, Museum moderner Kunst – Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, 1999 (member of the curatorial team); The Future Is Not What It Used To Be, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, 2004 (co-curator).Zabel was coordinator of Manifesta 3, European Biennial of Contemporary Art, in Ljubljana in 2000 and a member of the International Board of Manifesta. He was co-editor of the first six issues of the MJ – Manifesta Journal: Journal of Contemporary Curatorship (with Viktor Misiano) and for several years editor of the magazine of Moderna galerija Ljubljana M’ars.
Igor Zabel is the author of two books of essays on contemporary art and a number of essays and articles published in Slovenian and international anthologies, collected editions, catalogues and magazines (including Art Journal, Art Press, Flash Art, Index, Moscow Art Magazine, and others). He wrote short stories andtranslated (into and from the Slovene language) numerous texts and books (by Edward W. Said, Oscar Wilde, Amartya Kumar Sen, Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein) from the field of humanities and literature. For several years, he engaged in passing on his broad knowledge and experiences in writing and curating contemporary art to younger generations in the World of Art – Curatorial Course for Contemporary Art in Ljubljana.