How can, should, and may one negotiate questions and desires related to religion, faith, and the church as public advertising? DE PROPAGANDA FIDE is rooted in a time when slogans didn’t seem embarrassing at all. That has changed. The ambiguity of messianism and power, morality and kitsch, religion and nationalism, faith and irrationality, et cetera, have often discredited religious posters.

The posters that the Catholic Church in Styria began to put up at the beginning of the 1970s are therefore more than astounding. They tell of self-criticism, interventions in society, and the courage to reform the church. But that reform faltered. The posters’ massive sources of friction have made them a vanguard for later major church (and social) conflicts.

Curated by Johannes Rauchenberger

Artists: buero bauer, G.R.A.M., Richard Kriesche, Karl Neubacher, Alois Neuhold, Hannes Priesch, Lukas Pusch, Nives Widauer, zweintopf, and others

Links

https://2022.steirischerherbst.at/en/program/events/3834/kultum-zentrum-fr-gegenwart-kunst-und-religion-in-graz-de-propaganda-fide
https://2022.steirischerherbst.at/en/program/events/3833/kunst-der-verfuehrung