2001

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“New artistic and theoretical identity strategies are engendering a broken, fragile, albeit (for the moment) resistant andcritical, vital self. A ‘Second Modernism’ may become an actuality. steirischer herbst 2001 gives space to this artistic and scientific practice. In opposition to the impositions on the self. In opposition to the constraints of mercilessly globalised capitalism. In opposition to the ill-considered promised of biological engineering. In opposition to the populisms of every political reductionism. The subject is rebelling.”
—Peter Oswald

Peter Oswald’s second steirischer herbst had the overarching theme Zerfall und Widerstand—Die neue Radikalität des Subjekts (Dissolution and Resistance: The New Radicalness of the Subject). According to Oswald in his foreword to the program booklet, the subject rebelled “against the pressures of a mercilessly globalized capitalism. Against the rash promises of biotechnology. Against the populisms of all political reductionism.”

The exhibition ABBILD: Recent Portraiture and Depiction (curator: Peter Pakesch) at the Landesmuseum Joanneum was dedicated to the portrayal of people in contemporary art, with works by Paweł Althamer, Louise Bourgeois, Miriam Cahn, Maurizio Cattelan, Maria Lassnig, and Antje Majewski. There were four days of lectures and discussions on biopolitics at the structural engineering center of the Technical University Graz with the title Genpool, Menschenpark, Freizeitkörper (Gene Pool, Human Park, Leisure Bodies), while the project Never Stop the Action presented three days of performance art in the center of Graz.

Beat Furrer’s Begehren (Desire), a “musical theater piece as existential research” (Oswald), a work commissioned by steirischer herbst, was chosen as the premiere of the year in 2003 by the renowned magazine Opernwelt. The premiere of Händl Klaus’s first play, Ich ersehne die Alpen; So entstehen die Seen (I Yearn for the Alps; This Is How Lakes Are Formed), in contrast, flopped—two years later, the dramatist would celebrate success at the festival. Gerhard Rühm made a grand appearance both musically and artistically with an exhibition of his visual poetry and visual music at the Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten, as well as with two concerts premieres.

Program