Catalogue of the decade-defining exhibition Kontext Kunst: The Art of the 90s at Neue Galerie im Künstlerhaus, Graz, 2 October – 7 November, 1993, curated by Peter Weibel. The exhibition proposed (early in the decade) that art practice in the 1990s focused on methods and practices of ‘contextualization’ as opposed to the classic didactic, ideological functions of traditional art. Exhibited artists included: Fareed Armaly, Cosima von Bonin, Tom Burr, Clegg & Guttmann, Meg Cranston, Mark Dion, Peter Fend, Andrea Fraser, Inspection Medhermeneutics, Ronald Jones, Louise Lawler, Thomas Locher, Dorit Margreiter, Kasimir Malewitsch, Katrin von Maltzahn, Regina Möller, Reinhard Mucha, Christian Philipp Müller, Anton Olschwang, Hirsch Perlman, Dan Peterman, Adrian Piper, Mathias Poledna, Stephan Prina, Florian Pumhösl, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Julia Scher, Oliver Schwarz, Jason Simon, Rudolf Stingel, Lincoln Tobier, Olga Tschernyschewa, Christopher Williams, Peter Zimmermann, Heimo Zobernig.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.

Marcel Broodthaers worked primarily as a poet until 1963, when for the last twelve years of his life he made a richly varied, elusive, and influential body of work. The work he created in this albeit too brief time period was enormously influential to future generations of artists. Known for his associations in which he explores the nature and meaning of language, word and image, and rhetoric, his work encompasses poetry, writing, books, film, photography, slides, drawing, painting, and sculpture.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership.

The human body is a central focus in Philipp Gufler’s mirror painting series. Looking at the work, the spectator is confronted with their own image. To make these works Gufler uses a silkscreen printing technique on mirrored glass in order to produce layers of translucent pigment.

“Gufler’s ‘mirrorical’ art passes through the looking glass; his spaces are traps for the gaze. The reflective surfaces and diaphanous scrims in his oeuvre function as projection screens and as obstacles in games of identification and disidentification; recognition and misrecognition; self-performance and self-alienation.“ Sven Lütticken. Designed by Sabo Day.

Tabea Blumenschein (1952–2020), Hilka Nordhausen(1949–1993), and Rabe perplexum (1956–1996) were eccentric artists of the eighties – they deviated from norms and operated outside of the centre in subcultural milieus. They worked in friendly constellations in the cities of Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich. Blumenschein, Nordhausen, and perplexum represented images of gender and identity that weren’t recognized at the time and lived their sexual orientations in a non-conformist manner.

Their lives and works are activated here by contemporary artists Ergül Cengiz (3 Hamburger Frauen), Philipp Gufler, and Angela Stiegler in a series of images and texts.

Philipp Gufler blends art with activism and history education. His research-based artistic work centers on the study of queer life and the aesthetic practices of LGBTQIA+ movements. To investigate them, the artist harnesses pop-cultural and literary references and translates knowledge gleaned from mass media and historical archives into videos, silkscreen prints, installations, and performances. Besides documentary evidence from the media, the materials out of which he makes his works include interviews with contemporary witnesses, artists, activists, and theorists. Gufler’s critical studies draw connections between historic attitudes toward queer identity and their relevance to current debates as well as institutional critique. Designed by Yvonne Quirmbach.

Projektion Auf Die Krise (Projection on the Crisis) takes a kaleidoscopic and retrospective look at the early days of the AIDS crisis in Germany during the 1980s—a time in which Munich’s repressive policies against gay people reached its peak: the arrival of the pandemic in Germany and the Bavarian response to it, consisting of a catalogue of measures which envisioned forced testing and separation, instigated by Peter Gauweiler who was Bavarian Secretary of State at the time.

Historic documents from the Forum Queeres Archiv München, assembled by Philipp Gufler, are arranged in chronological order and augmented by conversations with Guido Vael and Dr.med. Hans Jäger alongside contemporary works of fellow artists including Maximiliane Baumgartner, Stephan Janitzky, Gürsoy Doğtaş amongst others. The revised second edition also contains essays by Albert Knoll and Hendrik Folkerts, as well as, for the first time, an English translation of the German original texts.