Defining the indefinite: Political Populism at Kunsthalle Wien

Political Populism is a group show curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen for Kunsthalle Wien. The exhibition takes under consideration the concerning rise of political populism in contemporary society, and the increasing spread of populist aesthetics in media and social media. The border between political rhetoric and populism is quite tight. The American Heritage Dictionary defines populism as “a political philosophy supporting the rights and power of the people in their struggle against the privileged elite”. In despite of any definition, populism is not a pure political philosophy – it changes over time. It has no precise statement and it acts as a metamorphic political agent. Populism is like a transversal phenomenon, a charismatic modality through which it’s possible to link voters to politicians. It is often a successful strategy, and politicians adopt it in order to receive electoral support. However, we won’t be surprised when we see politicians first use distributive rhetorics and then end up choosing policies in line with the interests of the rich elite.

Christian Falsnaes, Influence (Videostill), 2012, Courtesy PSM, Berlin

Political Populism arrives at a particular moment for Europe and for peaceful Austria. Europe is right in the middle of an epochal migration. It is a remarkable democratic event, a logical consequence of new world assets and new forms of internationalism. The globalization of markets brought to a globalization of migrations as a side consequence. The scar of mobility is represented in Flaka Haliti’s installation, where yellow bags filled with blue sand are a reference to uprooting and to the loss of possessions associated with leaving one’s home behind. The choice of moving is addressed in Jun Yang’s narration – the story of the artist’s parents’ migration told through a self-reflexive identity reconstruction. During the last Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, curator Carolyn Christov Bakargiev moved part of the exhibition to Kabul in Afghanistan. On that occasion, Goshka Macuga produced two tapestries: Of what is, that it is; Of what is not, that it is not No. 1 and No. 2. Part 1, originally shown in Kassel and now exhibited in Vienna, depicts a crowd of Afghans and Westerners in front of the Darul Aman Palace outside of Kabul. Part 2, originally exhibited in Kabul, shows an art-world crowd and protesters gathered outside of the Orangerie in Kassel. Both scenes are conceived as complementary halves and will never be exhibited together. These physical and ideal moments push us to conceptually think the entire panorama of migration from a different perspective. This exhibition not only explores the aesthetic potential of the contemporary nomadic condition, but also its media-related effects. Artwork such as the one by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, The Incidental Insurgents, Part 3: When the fall of the dictionary leaves all words lying in the street, are able to stress the boundaries of language and let the connections between facts and fiction emerge. The paratextual order of contemporary art strategies endorses the idea that visual art can “mediate across the borders and speak in immigrant tongues with multiple accents,” as Svetlana Boym pointed out in Immigrant Arts, Diasporic Intimacy, and Alternative Solidarity. On the other hand, it is funny to see how the so-called mass-media culture reacts to these democratic phenomena. The audience in the exhibition can easily compare different populist narrations on the subject of migration: as portrayed by the media on the one hand, and the exhibited artists’ critical views on mass media communication on the other.

Installation view: Political Populism, Kunsthalle Wien 2015, Photo: Stephan Wyckoff: Goshka Macuga, Model for a Sculpture (Family), 2011, Courtesy the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York; Of what is, that it is; Of what is not, that it is not 1, 2012, Courtesy the artist and Prada Collection, Milano

Installation view: Political Populism, Kunsthalle Wien 2015, Photo: Stephan Wyckoff: Jun Yang, Goldenes Zimmer, 2015, Eat Drink Art Business, 2015, Paris Syndrome (Indoor Plants), 2007–ongoing, Wiener Paravent, 2015, Wiener Sitzgruppe, 2015, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna

Political Populism doesn’t deal only with migration, for the idea of political portrayal and its connections with populism are also disputed – like in Simon Denny’s installation Secret Power Highlighted, in which the role of technology is diligently emphasized. In Denny’s artistic research the function of symbols is explored in relation to human knowledge and established power. Indeed, the exhibition seeks to destroy common (accepted) sense. The discourse is shifted to nitty-gritty contents, and to a wide-ranging articulation of issues and responses associated with the complex and contested concept of populism in the political – and thereby social – realm.

Installation view: Political Populism, Kunsthalle Wien 2015, Photo: Stephan Wyckoff: Simon Denny, Secret Power Highlighted, 2015, Courtesy the artist, Galerie Buchholz Berlin/Cologne and Galerie Petzel, New York

What emerges from Political Populism is also that populism, as every aspect of life, is elusive to political sciences. It seems that the macrotheme could be forever indefinable. A sort of never-ending contradiction, that finds in the artistic representation not a crystallization, but simply another shape. Thus, all attempts to embody a strategy in a very specific format are simply a failure. On the one hand, indeed, the exhibition seems to claim for itself a critical role in a wider discourse, and on the other it outlines the incomplete perimeter of an increasing phenomenon. As in Hito Steyerl’s Factory of the Sun, the world depicted by Nicolaus Schafhausen is increasingly heterodox. In such populistic climax, we could observe a growing number of people ready to change their minds at any time. Political awareness can suddenly collapse, as pointed out by Anna Jermolaewa’s work. The 2-channel video Political Extras by Anna Jermolaewa is above all an interesting attempt to establish a parallelism between populism and art institutions. During the last Moscow Biennale, Jermolaewa paid around one hundred people to demonstrate both for and against the international art event. By selling their political bodies, the protesters became symbols of purchased media manipulation under the guise of a democratic form of protest. This affinity may not be based on a common belief, but rather on the very contradictory nature of contemporary society. So people – and established artists – can avoid paying attention or being ashamed of being immersed in an empty and hedonistic world. A world in which populism is growing, while we try to define it.

Political Populism at Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier, Vienna till February 7, 2016.