W*HOLE AGAIN by FLORIAN ASCHKA & LARISSA KOPP
in collaboration with ALEXANDRU CORSARCA and GEORG KLÜVER-PFANDTNER (2020)

In contrast to the 1868 inaugural ceremony overseen by Kaiser Franz Joseph I, artists FLORIAN ASCHKA, ALEXANDRU CORSARCA, GEORG KLÜVER-PFANDTNER, AND LARISSA KOPP take a contemporary anarchic and queer approach in their performance W*HOLE AGAIN.

Staged on March 6, 2020, the occasion of the reopening of the Künstlerhaus, the performance will be documented on film for the subsequent exhibition ALLES WAR KLAR. Led by a female master of ceremonies who acts as a many-headed allegory, the performance makes reference to 19th-century forms of representation and by extension the association‘s origins.

The protagonist embodies the performance group‘s own paradigms, which they also propose as guidelines for the reopening of the Künstlerhaus: anti-fascism, feminism, and queerness. During a speech addressed to the visitors, she refers to the association‘s history and gives humorous instructions for the potential uses of the renovated building.

Four other performers allegorically embody four wishes for the Künstlerhaus: play, shamelessness, failure and solidarity. A choir performs and solemnly begins a contemporary, playful arrangement of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s Festgesang an die Künstler, based on a text by Friedrich Schiller, which was also performed in 1868: The dignity of man into your hands is given. The exhibition will then be opened to visitors.