Busy Vienna

photo by p.p.queen, right side: big wellness skull, left side: small joep van lieshout

Until sunday the Vienna Art Week is taking place. You can choose from a load of events- artist talks, lectures, openings, discussions- which makes decision hard sometimes.
P.P.Queen heard an interesting lecture from Robert Morris at the MUMOK and was at the opening of Joep van Lieshouts Wellness Skull, which is located in the center of the city at the Karlsplatz.
"With his ironic monument to transitoriness, van Lieshout alludes to the fitness mania of present-day society that provides a surrogate for a spiritual experience beyond all bodily and material affairs. Metaphorically, the artist regards the skull as man’s mental shell. It is the interplay between supernatural, divine powers and the secular power that Joep van Lieshout thematizes in his “Wellness Skull.” The functionalization of such a symbol, which is characteristic of the artist’s work, lends an ironical tone to it: when the sauna is turned on, white smoke rises from the skull’s openings."(kör)
After the opening there was a fine discussion about Art in public space with Joep van Lieshout, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Brigitte Franzen, Thomas Edlinger and Gerald Matt (Moderation) at the Kunsthalle Wien, project space karlsplatz.

http://www.ateliervanlieshout.com/

http://www.koer.or.at/en/

http://www.kunsthallewien.at/en/

http://www.viennaartweek.at/2008/