slovensky/
tranzit.org/

tranzit.sk/

Queer Stories

exhibition

Text Information/
Picture Gallery/

1.12. 2018 - 16.3. 2019

Participating artists:
Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, Cabello/Carceller, Anna Daučíková,
Robert Gabris, Ana Hoffner, Ivan Jurica,
Toni Schmale


Further contributions by:
Pavlína Fichta Čierna, Katrina Daschner, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Sabine Schwaighofer, Nana Swiczinsky, Andrea B. Braidt, Christian Havlíček, Martin Hodoň, Marty Huber, Romina Kollárik, Eszter Kováts, Andrej Kuruc, Zuzana Maďarová, Róbert Pakan, Sandra Polovková, Elégia Štrbová, Veronika Valkovičová

Curated by
Christiane Erharter


Opening:
November 30, 2018 at 7 pm


The opening will be preceded by the performance:
Non-aligned relatives by Ana Hoffner
at 6:30pm


Venue: tranzit.sk, Beskydská 12, Bratislava
Open: Wednesday – Friday 2-7 pm, Saturday 1-6 pm


FREE SHUTTLE BUS TO THE OPENING:

ERSTE Foundation is offering a free shuttle bus from Vienna to Bratislava and back


Friday, 30 November, 2018

Meeting point: Erste Campus, Karl-Popper-Straße 8, 1100 Vienna (in front of Parkgarage Erste Campus)
16:15 Registration
16:30 Departure
20:30 Return from Bratislava to Vienna
21:30 Approximate time of arrival back in Vienna at Erste Campus

Please register

Registration closing date: Tuesday, 27 November 2018

Admission free. Don’t forget to bring your passport or ID card for the trip!


Program

11.12. 2018, tranzit.sk
Kapitalks - The apple of gender: anti-gender rhetorics and its agents in Europe and in Slovakia
discussion
participants: Eszter Kováts, Zuzana Maďarová, Veronika Valkovičová
organized by NOMANTINELS Theater

20.12. 2018, tranzit.sk
The Story of Gay And the Story of Lesbian
reading from dramatic texts
Organized by NOMANTINELS Theater

23.1. 2019, tranzit.sk
Pavlína Fichta Čierna: Post-Eclipse Transfocation
screening and discussion
guests: Katarína Franeková, Christián Havlíček, Romina Kollárik

1.2. 2019
Queer Experimental Film Night
screening and lecture
films by: Katrina Daschner, Ana Hoffner, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Sabine Schwaighofer, Nana Swiczinsky
lecture: Andrea B. Braidt

1.3. 2019
Helena Cabello, Ana Carceller: The State of the Art
lecture

15.3. 2019
Marty Huber: Queering Gay Pride
lecture



ERSTE Foundation is main partner of tranzit.

The project has been also supported by the Grant Scheme of Bratislava Self-Governing Region and by the Austrian Cultural Forum.

Media partner: QYS Magazine.
Partner: NOMANTINELS Theater.

“We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!”
(LGBTIQ+ slogan, used by Queer Nation, 1990)

Queer Stories – this international group exhibition addresses queer identity as a still under-represented social category, often associated with stereotypical thinking and social exclusion. It is the first exhibition dedicated to this topic at tranzit.sk and features an international selection of artists whose practices deal with queer histories / herstories / stories. The organisers also wish to strengthen the exchange between Vienna’s lively queer art scene and Bratislava’s queer community.

The notion “queer” as a term used for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans- and inter-gender activism and academic thought has an almost thirty year long history. Its roots date back to the late 1980s, originating on the one hand in the then-new rhetoric of fighting homophobia (and transphobia) and, on the second hand, in the then-new way of thinking the category of gender. Simultaneously with activism and theory, queer art practices started to emerge in the early 1990s, translating a new powerful activism and epistemology into aesthetic categories, and building new forms of artistic expression concerning gender and sex.

Queer goes beyond LGBTIQ+ identities; it challenges and questions personal or assigned identities. And in so doing it challenges power relations and addresses post-colonial questions, and discriminatory and (pornographic) sexual politics. The new activist forces together with the radical thinking of gender and sex proved to be fertile ground for artistic production. For example, an entire new cinematic practice, the “New Queer Cinema”, hit screens all over the world, narrating stories of non-hetero-normative existence. Besides film, fine art also saw a huge number of queer art practices emerge during the 1990s (and before and after). Queerness became a decisive point of departure in contemporary art and culture production implicating the necessity of societal change.

The exhibition brings together works that deal with subjects and subjectivities that have evolved within the queer context. They do not focus on the coming-out scenario as the problem that kicks-off the narrative, but rather use queer subjectivity as a canvas to unfold lives and worlds which are intended to make sense for those in the know – not for those who need explanations. They do not go into the suffering of trying and coming out of the closet, but lead an existence outside the closet – not questioning their lives or being at pain with it. Queer Stories wants to show how artistic expressions come up with frameworks in which queer lives matter; at times they are full of jokes and innuendo (Robert Gabris) and at other times, radical associations (Toni Schmale); they sometimes thrive on quoting and subverting the everyday (Ivan Jurica); they are deeply situated in a history of drag (Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz), queer art practice and theory (Ana Hoffner), or in artistic research (Cabello/Carceller); they tell stories of sexual desire and the political notion of the body (Anna Daučíková). They all share a sense of telling their tales differently in the sense that these works deal with the way stories are told and show how to establish a radical way of construing new narratives. This is important and crucial, as new ways of thinking about gender need new ways of telling the stories that focus on the people who live in newly gendered contexts. The endeavour of this exhibition is to show work around a specific dimension of queer art practice (“telling stories”).

By bringing together artists of different generations and diverse artistic genres (drawing, film and video, installation, performance, sculpture) Queer Stories intends to stimulate thought – and give pleasure. Because without wit and irony, no story can be queered and no (queer) story can be told.


Accompanying Programme:
A queer experimental film night with films by Katrina Daschner, Ana Hoffner, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Sabine Schwaighofer, Nana Swiczinsky followed by a round table with the film makers and input by Andrea B. Braidt, as well as lectures by Helena Cabello, Ana Carceller, Marty Huber will accompany the exhibition. The programme also includes the screening of video works by Pavlína Fichta Čierna with guests; the discussion on homophobia with Eszter Kováts, Zuzana Maďarová, Veronika Valkovičová and reading of dramatic texts, both organized by NOMANTINELS Theater within the Month of Human Rights.



Related
Cabello/Carceller: The State of the Art – Some possibilities for a queer riot from the surrealistic South
Marty Huber: Gay Pride! Gay Shame! Queer Feelings... Back to the B_Orderlands
Post-Eclipse Transfocation
Queer Experimental Film Night