The project »Kunst zum Erschießen« (Art for Shooting) by the House Gras is aimed at reflecting the basic attitudes, the ideas and the principles of faith with regard to art, the association with and the relationship to it and shall demonstrate its responsibility in every aspect to reflect on. To create art, to publish it, to exhibit it, but also to buy and own it is a process of highest responsibility – for both the producers and the consumers. To jolt this reflection the House Gras calls to arms and propagates the active comparison between a sense of responsibility in the art sector and the deployment of fire arms.

The artworks for shooting always portray stereotypes of our society. This way the House Gras broaches the often forgotten issue: to have an opinion means to take on responsibility – just like in real life this responsibility is also found in the world of art. Prejudices regarding art are, for example: „It is expensive, it must be good, no matter whether I like it or understand it”. The buyer is free to decide why he wants to buy his stereotype, in order to shoot at it. Either because he accepts that prejudices should be questioned or because he approves this prejudice… just like in the arts: The artist’s motive to create a picture and the buyer’s motive to purchase a picture are rarely in accordance with each other.

As part of a social community every person has to live and act socially and self-dependently. In this sense it is unavoidable to be aware of what art can be, how it may be used, deployed and equally abused. There is no difference in owning a weapon. How does the saying go: „Weapons do not kill, people do.” Transferred to the arts one can say: „Art does not want anything. Artists and buyers do.”

Opening Thu. 25.2.2010, 18h
SHOOTING PREJUDICE opens at ADVANCED MINORITY CUBICLE – Contemporary Artspace
Westbahnstrasse 22 . Ecke Zieglergasse . 1070 Wien
from 25. February 2010 until 2. April 2010
Opening times: Monday – Saturday from 13-18 hrs

Web: www.advancedminority.com
Contact: teresa.klicpera@advancedminority.com

VIDEO – Schüsse bei der Pressekonferenz

photos by Karolina Miernik

Are you afraid of monsters? – Matt Cipov is not!

Bizarre masquerades, utopian human as well as animalistic individuals, macabre creatures, witchcraft and sorcery are the topics that Matt Cipov has subscribed to and which dominate his entire artistic creation. His source of inspiration is everyday lunacy: people sitting opposite you in the tube, randomly witnessed conversations, pictures and headlines in newspapers, music as well as nature or abstruse dreams. Everything seen and experienced is interpreted and abstracted and the result is a complex pictorial study about everything that is real even though it does not seem obvious.

Matt Cipov’s work delights through a random combination of different techniques and approaches. His illustrations present an artistically interesting hybrid – juggling between collage and drawing – starting with stamping, the incorporation of typographic elements up to a challenging construction of several picture planes. An interesting mix between surreal drawing constructions paired with naturalistic elements gives Matt Cipov’s little drawings the certain je-ne-sais-quoi.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the artist and graphic designer Matt Cipov gained his diploma at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in 1999 and subsequently worked as graphic designer and freelance artist. After becoming self-employed in 2005 his prestige and reputation as an artist are on a continuous rise. He has already been part of group- as well as single exhibitions in the United States, Canada and Germany and now, for the very first time, presents a comprehensive show with more than 80 original drawings in Austria.

Opening Thu. 14.1.2010, 18h
MASQUERADE opens at ADVANCED MINORITY CUBICLE – Contemporary Artspace . Westbahnstrasse 22 . 1070 Wien

from 14th January 2010 till 12th February 2010
Opening Times: Monday till Saturday from 13-18 hrs

Web: www.advancedminority.com
Contact: teresa.klicpera@advancedminority.com

Seen on youtube http://galsrockparis.blogspot.com – am t-shirts for gals in paris

SEEN and EDITED BY VALENCE

photos by Karolina Miernik

On Thursday, 26th November 2009 we will celebrate a premiere at the AM CUBICLE-contemporary artspace! For the first time the Austrian photographer Georg Schnellnberger and his team present the unique photo comic EEK! and invite you, together with Advanced Minority, to an opening night party with a difference: in the course of the exhibition of the same name the visitor enters the dark world of EEK!, gets to know main and supporting characters and is in the middle of things instead of viewing them from the outside.

Somewhere between placards and food pics professional photographer Georg Schnellnberger asks himself the question why comics are exclusively reserved for illustrators. He has no answer. Even less can he explain to himself, why no other photographer has approached this subject up to now. The staging of quirky characters, the lustful mystification and its realization has appealed to him for some time, and so it came to be that Georg Schnellnberger, as master of photographic perfection, managed to fuse two originally unrelated disciplines into a splendid spectacle.

Juggling between classic comic and top-class photographic practice EEK! captivates with unique metaphorical language and remarkable, since exceptional picture aesthetics. Unusual, daring perspectives, atmospheric lighting sceneries and eroticising productions seduce the reader and immerse him into another world. Barriers are knowingly crossed, established clichés are reviewed and the art of comics newly interpreted. EEK! shows how far one can go today, using photography and image editing and how, with a little imagination, the limits of reality can be extended, blurred and re-set.

…And since Georg Schnellnberger knew that he could not manage such an extensive project on his own he went to gain a group of dedicated people, with whom he could realize this project at all. The volunteers, such as Copy Writer Sandra Stuhlhofer, Art Director Thorsten Beham, Picture Editor Julia Müller-Maenher, 3D Artist Roman Saravia (Friendly Fire), Make-up Artists Anna Anyikude and Maria Becker, as well as Theatre Outfitter Bianca Fladerer were excited by the idea from the start. And so they worked together for approximately one year between job and bedtime to cast an action-packed story into epic pictures worth seeing.

So Georg Schnellnberger leads us through the dark and nebulous city called Ebonyfields, an unpleasant refuge for all kinds of crooks and criminals. The personal stories of its inhabitants intensify and lead to an emotionally touching showdown. To look for morals or a bad conscience is in vain. All the better for the viewer, because as a confidant he is integrated into the circle of insiders and experiences the shady figures and their conflicting battles. Being a witness he is directly next to, above or behind the victim, which breathes its last bit of life’s energy into a vanishing echo. Despite all the brutality, the beastly cruelty and the perceptible aggression the pictures seem to be less terrible and repulsive than fascinating, captivatingly beautiful and surprisingly artistic … and precisely for this reason it could not just amount to a tired comic presentation. Advanced Minority recognized the exceptional potential of EEK! and created, together with Georg Schnellnberger, a cool exhibition that appeals to both comic enthusiasts as well as those interested in art.

Vernissage Th. 26.11.2009, 6 p.m.
EEK! opens at ADVANCED MINORITY CUBICLE – Contemporary Artspace .
Westbahnstrasse 22 . 1070 Wien

from the 26th of November 2009 to 8th of January 2010
opening hours: Monday to Saturday from 1 to 6 p.m.
web: www.advancedminority.com
contact: teresa.klicpera@advancedminority.com

SEEN BY JACK THE RIPPER – EDITED BY VALENCE