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Reports from Austria

MIROSLAV TICHY AT GALEIRE ELISABETH & KLAUS THOMAN

Between 1955 and 1985, Miroslav Tichý created highly original works of a remarkable formal quality. His main subject is women whom he captured with his self-made cameras, without their knowing, in public swimming baths, in the street, in everyday situations. Put under surveillance and persecuted politically due to his dissident stance, he withdrew completely from public life and the art scene, ending up in a state of near dereliction and ceasing to make work.

DIANA THATER AT KUNSTHAUS GRAZ, AUSTRIA

Premiered at the Kunsthaus Graz and realized in collaboration with the Museum of Natural History in London to celebrate the bicentenary of Darwin's birth, Diana Thater's new work 'gorillagorillagorilla' is a study of human and animal behaviour and the artist's further investigation of the medium of video as an image production tool, capable of creating impressive spatial and visual environments.

JOSEPHINE MECKSEPER AT MIGROS MUSEUM, ZURICH

Situated somewhere between the trappings of political activism and mass consumerism, the work of Josephine Meckseper functions like sculptural collages that evoke the paradoxes of the current capitalist value system. In Meckseper's first solo exhibition in Switzerland, the migros museum für gegenwartkunst is exhibiting a series of new works investigating the complex interaction between the auto and oil industries and the war in Iraq.

LAST CHANCE: SHARON LOCKHART AT SECESSION, VIENNA

Over the last 15 years US-American artist Sharon Lockhart has made films and photographs that frame moments of everyday life while exploring the subtle relationships between the two mediums. Shown for the first time at the Secession in Vienna, Lockhart's latest films and accompanying photographic series describe a specific place and time: Maine's Bath Iron Works at the start of the 21st century. Lockhart spent the last year looking at the lives of workers in the historic shipyard and each of the five projects included in the exhibition examines a different element of their everyday experience.

MARKUS SCHINWALD AT ATELIER AUGARTEN, VIENNA

Exploring the thin boundary between the uncanny and the familiar, Markus Schinwald's multi-media works often collapse both theoretical notions into works bearing beauty and awkwardness, as well as fantasy and reality, in equal doses. For his new show at Augarten Contemporary in Vienna, Schinwald has created a narrative tour of his own recent career, creating an experiential continuum of the artificial present suggested in his works.

HERMANN P. HUBER AT KUNSTHALLE WIEN

Hermann P. Huber's 'T I R I N G', a video made in an abandoned, subsequently squatted, department store in the middle of Cairo, works both as a documentary of contemporary life and as a carefully staged portrait of another era's fallen grandeur, coiling everything that remains back in over itself.

CHEN ZHEN AT KUNSTHALLE VIENNA

Chen Zhen, who died in 2000, was one of the most outstanding artists of the Chinese avant-garde. At the heart of this major retrospective is Jue Chang, Dancing Body - Drumming Mind (Last Song), a monumental percussion instrument made of around one hundred chairs, stools and beds covered with animal skins (detail below). The work gains its full significance only by interaction with the audience.

'VIDEO AS URBAN CONDITION', VARIOUS VENUES

See something from all angles, and keep moving - catch some of the projects currently being organised by 'Video as urban condition' and participate in the visual havoc if you can 'turn up, sit back, join in, log on'. Enter their project's video-pool and have a chance at winning $1000, too..

RYAN MCGINLEY: PUBLIC ART PROJECT IN VIENNA

Ryan McGinley, whose most recent exhibition of photographs taken at Morrissey concerts we featured on Your Gallery magazine, has recently completed his first piece of public art. Wrapped around a building in the centre of Vienna are McGinley's photographs of the young and the beautiful. The installation on Karlsplatz, right by one of the city's busiest subway stops, will be up for one year.

THIS IS NOT FOR YOU AT THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA ART CONTEMPORARY, VIENNA

Until 30 March 2007, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary is presenting works of sculpture, assemblage, and sculptural installation from its collection by Ai WeiWei, Fiona Banner, Monica Bonvicini, Chen Qiulin, Dragset & Elmgreen, Isa Genzken, Jeppe Hein, Jim Kambie, Sarah Lucas, Jan Mancuska, Carsten Nicolai, Olaf Nicolai, Jorge Pardo, Eva Rothschild, Rachel Selekman, Andreas Siekmann, Do-Ho Suh, Heimo Zobernig.

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