DREAM & TRAUMA

KUNSTHALLE WIEN & MUSEUM MODERNER KUNST STIFTUNG LUDWIG WIEN (MUMOK), VIENNA 29.6.2007-4.10.2007

Dream & Trauma is a joint project led by Kunsthalle Wien and MUMOK, Vienna, in cooperation with the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art. Featuring works from the Dakis Joannou Collection, the exhibition approaches two phenomena that draw on the unconscious, the dream as well as the psychic injury – the trauma. In their own particular way, both generate imaginary worlds of the mind and fantastic scenarios. The dream, the companion of sleep, belongs to everyday life and links together various states of being. Trauma, by contrast, is manifested in reality as a psychic deformation and a symbolic wound collecting whatever has been suppressed or has disappeared from the conscious.

Works in the exhibition from artists such as, Nigel Cooke, Kiki Smith, and Christopher Wool, underscore this precarious state of existence and bear witness to the imaginative unfolding of gloomy, twilight worlds that reveal the impossibility of depicting the traumatic experience since, as an inner shock, it resists symbolic transformation. An aesthetic of trauma depicts forms of pain, fear and injury, as in the works of William Kentridge or Cindy Sherman. It also turns towards the abject, visualizing the suppressed, the revolting, and degenerate as shown in the works of Gregory Crewdson and Tim Noble/Sue Webster, which reveal wishes, desires, and tormenting dreams.

Dream & Trauma is a two-part exhibition. Hall 2 of the Kunsthalle Wien contains mainly large scale works, drawings, and photographs. Influenced by the maxim that a detour is the most direct path to the goal, objects by Urs Fischer, Jeff Koons, Poka-Yio, and Nari Ward block the exhibition’s entrance areas and hinder the visitor’s route. This creates a borderline that, on the one hand emphasizes the borders between the conscious and the unconscious, and on the other, underlines the inaccessibility of the suppressed psychological content of the unconscious. Meanwhile, works installed in the darkened rooms of MUMOK’s court stables show the dark side of human existence. In a metaphorical memorial room, two installation works form the center: Amazing Grace by Nari Ward, an accumulation of 280 old children’s prams and flatly pressed, fire brigade hoses, and Your Strange Certainty Still Kept, an illuminated water curtain by Olafur Eliasson.

Organized by the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK) and Kunsthalle Wien in collaboration with the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art.

For more information please visit the websites of MUMOK and Kunsthalle Wien

ARTISTS:
  • pawel althamer
  • TAUBA AUERBACH
  • HISHAM BHAROOCHA
  • PAUL MC CARTHY
  • MAURIZIO CATTELAN
  • PAUL CHAN
  • NIGEL COOKE
  • GREGORY CREWDSON
  • GERALD DAVIS
  • BRIAN DEGRAW
  • NATHALIE DJURBERG
  • MARCEL DZAMA
  • OLAFUR ELIASSON
  • Urs Fischer
  • NAOMI FISHER
  • SAUL FLETCHER
  • BARNABY FURNAS
  • ANNA GASKELL
  • ROBERT GOBER
  • MATT GREENE
  • ADAM HELMS
  • CAMERON JAMIE
  • DOROTA JURCZAK
  • WILLIAM KENTRIDGE
  • JEFF KOONS
  • FRIEDRICH KUNATH
  • MATT LEINES
  • JOSE LERMA
  • ASHLEY MACOMBER
  • TIM NOBLE & SUE WEBSTER
  • CHRIS OFILI
  • POKA-YIO
  • DIMITRIS PROTOPAPAS
  • OLIVER HALSMAN ROSENBERG
  • GEORGIA SAGRI
  • AUREL SCHMIDT
  • CINDY SHERMAN
  • DASHA SHISHKIN
  • KIKI SMITH
  • NEDKO SOLAKOV
  • CHRISTIANA SOULOU
  • ALEX STEIN
  • NARI WARD
  • CHRISTOPHER WOOL
  • RALF ZIERVOGEL
CURATED BY: Edelbert Köb, GERALD MATT, AND ANGELA STIEF