1992

John Cage, Fifty-Eight (1992), composition for orchestra, performed by Pannonisches Blasorchester Oberschützen, at musikprotokoll, Grazer Landhaus, 1992, photo: stefanharing.com

Werner Schwab, Mesalliance: Aber wir ficken uns prächtig (1992), play, with Andreas Sindermann and Susanne Weckerle, Schauspielhaus Graz, 1992, photo: Peter Manninger

Hartmut Skerbisch, Lichtschwert (1992), sculpture, at America nowhere, square in front of Oper Graz, 1992, photo: stefanharing.com

Jana Haimsohn, America Nowhere (1992), solo performance, Oper Graz (foyer), Graz, 1992, photo: stefanharing.com; courtesy of the artist

Identität : Differenz: Tribüne Trigon. Eine Topographie der Moderne 1940–1990, exhibition view, Neue Galerie Graz, Künstlerhaus Graz, Stadtmuseum Graz, 1992, photo: stefanharing.com
steirischer herbst ’92
America Nowhere
Director
Horst Gerhard Haberl
Festival dates
2.–26.10.1992
Curatorial team
Advisory Board: Werner Krause, Cathrin Pichler, Peter Strasser
“‘Simply the fact that I know more about America than about any other country leads me to seriously doubt whether America exists at all.’”
—Peter Strasser
"‘America nowhere’, fiction and utopia, Franz Kafka’s poetic metaphor of America as the ‘nearly boundless’ global theater, forms the core of steirischer herbst ’92. With the years-long, beastly assassination of peoples and cultures in former Yugoslavia taking place far too close for comfort, the conception of freedom emerges at once as an illusion: The game is over. But art goes on; its purpose is to create new survival strategies.
With its programmatic theme, ‘Nomadology of the Nineties’, steirischer herbst follows the development of a culture of mobility: mobility not in linear path, but rather as an opening which makes possible a boundary-crossing way of thinking and acting. And since its foundation in 1968, steirischer herbst has been both a cultural workshop of the future and a refuge for spiritual resistance.”
—Horst Gerhard Haberl (original booklet translations)
America Nowhere: in celebration of the quincentenary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in America in 1492, steirischer herbst was dedicated to the phantom of America and the introduction of the potato—which was also the poster motif—as a fiction and a utopia. Franz Kafka’s poetic metaphor of America as an “almost limitless theater of the world” formed the hub for the nomadic program of steirischer herbst ’92. As explained in the program booklet, “This ‘America’ revealed and concealed itself at will, produced impossible utopias on the assembly line, but whose greatest utopia is itself. ‘America nowhere,’ the central theme of steirischer herbst ’92, is a preliminary investigation of an existence based solely on deception, illusion, and simulation.”
The “transmedial official speech” in the foyer of the opera house was given by the American avant-garde performer Jana Haimsohn, while, next to the Opernhaus, Hartmut Skerbisch erected the monumental scaffolding sculpture Lichtschwert (Light Sword). Reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty, it holds a shining sword up in the air instead of a torch—as in Kafka’s unfinished novel Amerika—and still occupies the same position today. At the Opernhaus, a new version of Roman Haubenstock-Ramati’s opera Amerika (after Kafka) premiered under the musical direction of Beat Furrer, and musikprotokoll presented ten events in memory of John Cage, who died in 1992, titled America Now Here. The Schubert cinema organized a festival on Black American cinema.
After Wilfried Skreiner retired in 1992, his successor, Peter Weibel, organized two further trigon biennials in 1993 and 1995; they had little to do with the original format. The project Identität : Differenz. Eine Topographie der Moderne 1940–1990 (Identity : Difference: A Topography of Modernity, 1940–1990) had already been planned as the “trigon platform” prior to the dissolution of Yugoslavia. The project Kunst Heimat Kunst (Art Homeland Art) carried out a topographic expansion to locations outside of Graz (Antwerp, Berlin, Corsica, Moscow, and Urdorf/Zurich) with “mental geography,” and the special project The Immigrant Song presented a Mexican secondhand market as a three-day festival of folk music in a Styrian beer tent on Karmeliterplatz.
Program
Opera / theatre
Events
Music
The Immigrant Song 15.10.1992 I
The Immigrant Song 15.10.1992 II
The Immigrant Song 16.10.1992 I
The Immigrant Song 16.10.1992 II
Fine Art / Architecture
gallery day
Honorary awards - a picture of Austria
Interpreting the American Dream
Pictures after the wars/Truth of Art
Symposia
Film / Video
Out of Graz
Kinder - Literaturwerkstatt Donnersbachwald 8.10.1992
Kinder - Literaturwerkstatt Donnersbachwald 9.10.1992
Kinder - Literaturwerkstatt Donnersbachwald 11.10.1992
Eröffnung Literaturwerkstatt Hohentauern
Literaturwerkstatt Hohentauern Schlussveranstaltung
delicate and brutal - barbare et delicate
4Füssler / Station2 / Zeitfalle
Festival opening
2.10., 17:00
Opera Graz
Opening by the president of steirischer herbst Kurt Jungwirth, speech by Rudolf Scholten, transmedia speech: Jana Haimsohn America nowhere
Venues
Alte Galerie in Schloss Eggenberg, Graz
Alte Technik, Graz
Arland-Gelände, Graz
Brüderlein Fein, Graz
Burg Ehrenhausen, Ehrenhausen
CCW, Cultur Centrum Wolkenstein, Stainach/Ennstal
Congress Graz / Saal Steiermark, Graz
Congress Graz / Stefaniensaal, Graz
Cultur Centrum Wolkenstein, Stainach/Ennstal
Forum Stadtpark, Graz
Galerie Artelier Contemporary, Graz
Galerie Bleich-Rossi, Graz
Galerie CC, Graz
Galerie DIDA, Graz
Galerie Eugen Lendl, Graz
Galerie Freiberger, Mürzzuschlag
Galerie Glacis, Graz
Galerie Griss, Graz
Galerie H. + W. Lang, Graz
Galerie K, Graz
Galerie Leonhard, Graz
Galerie und Buchhandlung Droschl, Graz
Gasthof Edlacherhof, Mürzzuschlag
Grazer Kunstverein, Graz
Hotel Post, Kindberg
Hotel Stegerhof, Donnersbachwald
Kabelwerk, Breitenfeld, Mitterdorf/Mürztal
Kammermusiksaal (Grazer Kongress), Graz
Kapelle Hohenegg
Karmeliterplatz, Graz
Kirche St. Jakob, Krieglach
Kirche Sveti Duh, Slovenia
Kulturhaus Graz, Graz
Kunsthaus Mürzzuschlag, Mürzzuschlag
Künstlerhaus, Graz
Landhaushof, Graz
Meerscheinschloß, Graz
Minoritensaal, Graz
Musikschule Deutschlandsberg, Deutschlandsberg
Neue Galerie Graz, Graz
Oper Graz, Graz
Opernhaus-Foyer, Graz
Opernhaus Vorplatz, Graz
ORF-Landesstudio, Graz
Orpheum, Graz
Palais Attems, Graz
Palais Meran, Graz
Schauspielhaus Graz, Graz
Schubertkino, Graz
stadtmuseumgraz, Graz
Szenario, Graz
Thalia, Graz
Tummelplatz, Graz
Volkshaus Lagergasse, Graz
Volksschule Donnersbachwald, Donnersbachwald
Volksschule Hohentauern, Hohentauern
Werkstadt Graz, Graz
Publications

Program booklet of steirischer herbst 1992: steirischer herbst Veranstaltungsges.m.b.H., steirischer herbst ’92 (America nowhere) (Graz: steirischer herbst Veranstaltungsges.m.b.H., 1992)
→ Available here

Horst G. Haberl, Werner Krause and Peter Strasser, herbstschrift 1/92. Eine Nomadologie der Neunziger (Graz: steirischer herbst Veranstaltungsgesellschaft m.bH., 1992)

Horst G. Haberl, Werner Krause and Peter Strasser, herbstschrift 1+2/92. Eine Nomadologie der Neunziger (Graz: steirischer herbst Veranstaltungsgesellschaft m.bH., 1992)
→ Available here

Horst G. Haberl, Werner Krause and Peter Strasser, herbstschrift 3/92. Eine Nomadologie der Neunziger (Graz: steirischer herbst Veranstaltungsgesellschaft m.bH., 1992)

Horst G. Haberl, Werner Krause and Peter Strasser, herbstschrift 3/92. Eine Nomadologie der Neunziger (Graz: steirischer herbst Veranstaltungsgesellschaft m.bH., 1992)

Heimo Zobernig, Amerikaner (Graz: Forum Stadtpark, 1992)

Horst Gerhard Haberl, Werner Krause and Peter Strasser, America nowhere. Eine Nomadologie der Neunziger (herbstbuch drei) (Graz: Verlag Droschl, 1992)

Peter Weibel, Christa Steinle, Identität : Differenz. Tribüne Trigon 1940–1990. Eine Topografie der Moderne (Vienna - Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 1992)

Movie department Forum Stadtpark, Black American Cinema. Filme im steirischen herbst ’92 (Graz: Movie department Forum Stadtpark, 1992)

Otto Breicha and Hubert Klocker, Miteinander. Zueinander. Gegeneinander (Klagenfurt: Ritter Verlag, 1992)
→ Available here

Hans Nevidal, The Book of the Shrine (Vienna: minimal Verlag, 1992)

Grazer Kunstverein, steirischer herbst ’92, Plakate, Texte, Abbildungen (Graz.: Grazer Kunstverein, 1992)
Retrospective
Retrospective