The present-day world is tense. Emergency measures are being taken everywhere. Yet can fiscal controls and global political measures truly ward off the more deeply felt vulnerability of life, including mortality? What about the existential constitution? Just as dominant in the present “conditio humana” is the need to get it right along with the drive for perfection. Many disciplines and books about everyday life are concerned with equipping people with an effective immune status by way of self-transformation. Self-help books guide us in avoiding unwelcome intrusions and self-imposed endangerment of our selves. The recommended measures range from physical exercises, social techniques, and medical-physical optimizations to spiritual precautions—all of which are designed to protect people from themselves. The Austrian-American biotechnologist Erwin Chargaff counted among a group of scientists who, starting in the 1950s, were exploring and furthering the conditions that govern the factitious nature of man by deciphering the human genotype. Chargaff himself has nevertheless expressed deep misgivings about this approach, for the empowerment of man goes hand in hand with cultural and ethical consequences. It implies that people may become the designers of other people. This results in an asymmetrical relationship whereby technological means are employed to separate one exemplar of the human species from the cultural learning process and its state of reciprocal action and to willfully study this person. An author thus emerges who is designated neither God nor artist, yet who claims the right to factitious creation.
Artists
Lara Favaretto (IT), Alina Szapocznikow (PL), Ryan Gander (UK)Thomas D. Trummer
Thomas D. Trummer has been Director at The Kunsthalle Mainz since August 2012. From 2007–2012 he was curator for Visual Arts at Siemens Arts Program and Siemens Stiftung, Munich. He was Visiting Scholar at Act, MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology, Cambridge, MA (2010–2011); Hall Curatorial Fellow at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT (2006–2007). Previously he worked as curator for modern and contemporary art at Belvedere, Vienna and as guest curator at Graz Kunstverein. His recently curated shows comprise: Coral Visual, Casa de la Cultura, Buenos Aires (2009); The Science of Imagination, Ludwig Muzéum Budapest, (2010); Displaced Fractures, migros museum Zurich (2010); Artistic Research, MIT Cambridge, MA (2010–2011); Before The Law, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2012), Attila Csörgö & Roman Signer, Kunsthalle Mainz (2012).
Galerie Martin Janda
Eschenbachgasse, 11 1010 Wienwww.martinjanda.at