Series: trigon

1963–95 (part of steirischer herbst 1967–95)

The trigon biennial had a particularly formative influence on the early years of steirischer herbst. It contextualized the artistic developments in Yugoslavia, Italy, and Austria in a shared cultural region ideologically based on the historical territory known as “Inner Austria,” which, between the 14th and 17th centuries, included the territories of Styria, Carinthia, Istria, and Trieste. The questionable aspiration of reviving this entity was characteristic of Styria in the postwar period. Rather than processing its own Nazi history, a mythologizing of the past was preferred, and scholarship and art were used to foster a sense of identity.

The idea for the trigon biennial came from the conservative cultural policy maker Hanns Koren and represented the political and historical legitimation of a wide range of his initiatives, which caused controversy even within his own political ranks—for instance, following the performance of Wolfgang Bauer’s piece Die Gespenster (Ghosts, 1975) and the subsequent calls to do away with the festival, which Koren was able to thwart. Although the Steirische Akademie (Styrian Academy), Internationale Malerwochen (International Painting Weeks), and the first edition of musikprotokoll reflected Koren’s concept, it was manifested most clearly in the trigon biennial for contemporary art, which accompanied steirischer herbst between 1967 and 1992.

The trinational trigon biennial started in 1963 as an artistic extension of the Steirische Akademie and took up Koren’s long-cherished wish for a “Styrian biennial.” Starting in 1979, artists from countries other than Yugoslavia, Italy, and Austria were also included; the biennial became a stage for international artistic endeavors, with a clear emphasis on European artists.

The concept of the trigon biennial was linked to events like documenta in Kassel and the Venice Biennale, which was indicated by the appointment of national commissioners. For years, Umbro Apollonio, a curator at the Archivio Storico d’Arte Contemporanea of the Venice Biennial, chose the Italian artists; later the art historian and Biennale curator Achille Bonito Oliva made the selections. Zoran Kržišnik was responsible for this task for Yugoslavia for a similarly long period of time.

The trigon biennial thus operated as a festival within the festival, which set its own accents with elaborately designed catalogues and accompanying symposia. Even before steirischer herbst had an official overarching theme, each edition of the trigon biennial had an individually selected topic, which often led to frictions among the national commissioners.

The best example of this was trigon 79, titled Maskulin—Feminin (Masculine—Feminine), which examined alleged gender differences in the production of art. Although it was not a success, one positive aspect of this edition was the inclusion of more female than male artists for the first—and the last—time, including Marina Abramović, Ulrike Ottinger, and the British performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti.

The transformation into an interdisciplinary festival was undoubtedly linked to one individual: Wilfried Skreiner, who as director of the Neue Galerie Graz starting in 1966 took over the direction of the trigon biennial in 1967 and organized it until he retired in 1992. How much it depended on one person is shown by the fact that the festival took place only two more times after he left.

The first editions under Skreiner had a pioneering function. trigon 67, with the exhibition architecture by the two Graz-based architects Günther Domenig and Eilfried Huth, created a total work of art that met with strong reactions on the part of municipal politics. The edition of 1969 particularly focused on the approach of viewing architecture as something that can alter society, and plans by the Italian architects of Superstudio, the Austrian architects Coop Himmel(b)lau and Angela Hareiter, and conceptual works by Hans Hollein had a clear focus on the utopian architecture of the late 1960s. In 1973, trigon was dedicated to video art, which was new in Europe, and juxtaposed works by VALIE EXPORT with American artists curated by Peter Weibel, including Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Trisha Brown, Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, and Richard Serra.

Skreiner’s successor, Peter Weibel, organized two more trigon exhibitions in 1993 and 1995, but they had little to do with the original format. The interdisciplinary character of the biennial had long since become established as a characteristic of steirischer herbst, thus lessening the relevance of the biennial. The political upheavals after the collapse of Yugoslavia also contributed to the discontinuation of trigon as a format and series within steirischer herbst.