Richard Kriesche
a solo exhibition : a solo presence

In his critical and socially committed oeuvre, Richard Kriesche (1940 Vienna, AT – Graz, AT) analyzes and reflects the media, information, and digitalization revolutions from the 1960s to this day. His works also address the questions as to the essence of art, its renewal, and its role and function in society. Kriesche often develops his works out of an expanded understanding of art and, to this end, repeatedly forges alliances with science, research, economics, and politics.

This exhibition included a selection of significant groups of works that stand for the artist’s remarkably long career. Beginning with his ongoing exploration of new media and information and communication technologies, the exhibition made it possible to see various sociotechnical phases and ruptures over the past six decades. Many of these media and technologies have entered everyday life, and some of them have been replaced by newer innovations and have become obsolete. Kriesche’s work does not unfold any kind of universal history, however, but rather takes an approach based on specific projects that closely explore the artistic and social potential of these innovations. Kriesche’s stance is neither characterized by a naive enthusiasm for technology nor by hypercritical or dystopic visions. He rather analyzes the aesthetic parameters of new technologies and their pictorial, formal, and semiotic idioms, looking for opportunities to use these productively for society in the form of art.

The exhibition began with Kriesche’s new interactive installation self-space, to which the exhibition title solo presence refers. In a dedicated room, this installation brought the individual presence of exhibition visitors together with an invisible algorithm. This work addressed the permanent process of “datafication” that we are undergoing today—that never-ending production of data through digital devices that record, measure, and analyze us. From this point the exhibition then looked back at Kriesche‘s explorations of the characteristics of new media and technologies and the appertaining processes of dematerialization, electronification and informatization.

The exhibition was developed in close cooperation with the artist himself. It was based on works from the Generali Foundation Collection, complemented by loans from the artist and other collections.

The technical realization of the installation self-space was supported by Joanneum Research, Graz.