On annotating, editing and making text in contemporary art
Burn The Diaries, Read Them Out Loud is an exhibition incorporating a programme of performance, readings, discussions and exchange with a focus on text in the field of contemporary art. Conceived as a group exhibition in progress, artworks installed at its inception will be in dialogue with numerous performative interventions taking place at and around Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz over a course of four months. Looking closely at the practice of annotating, editing and writing in art, the format of the exhibition considers text as the framework for or ‘skeleton’ of artmaking – expanding its status beyond the preliminary note. The exhibition serves as a page upon which artworks and performances are inscribed as interrelated notes – sampling, (mis)quoting and rehearsing themselves and one another.
Artists employing text in their work have been invited to use the exhibition as a space for production and experimentation. A display that artist Ian Waelder conceived in conversation with the artists, curator and institution, forms a setting ready for interaction, as well as a site for reference and meeting that quite literally punctuates the space.
Artists
Anahita Asadifar, Sanna Helena Berger, Lara Dâmaso, Joshua Leon, Ville Laurinkoski, Prosopopoeia, Rietlanden Women’s Office, Lisa Robertson, Shanzhai Lyric, Miriam Stoney, Ian Waelder und Eleanor Ivory Weber
Programme
Thursday, 5 June, 19:00
Opening with a performance by Ville Laurinkoski
Saturday, 14 June, 16:00
Performance by Lara Dâmaso
Thursday, 3 July, 18:00
Performance by Eleanor Ivory Weber and Cassandra Seltman
Thursday, 4 September, 18:00
Performance by Sanna Helena Berger
Sunday, 14 September, 14:00
Workshop by Anahita Asadifar and Sam Dolbear
Saturday, 20 September, 14:00
Workshop with Prosopopoeia hosted by Inga Charlotte Thiele
Thursday, 25 September, 18:00
Lecture and Conversation by Lisa Robertson
Thursday, 16 October, 18:00
Reading by Miriam Stoney
Saturday, 18 October, 16:00
Performance by Shanzhai Lyric
Sunday, 19 October, 14:00
Conversation and Reading by Joshua Leon
Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz
Kunsthalle Wien is the City of Vienna’s institution for international contemporary art and discourse. At its venues in Museumsquartier and on Karlsplatz, it presents exhibitions of contemporary art and contextualizes them in their social and political contexts.
Burn The Diaries, Read Them Out Loud
6 Jun 2025 - 19 Oct 2025
Museumsplatz 1, 1070 Wien, Österreich
Performance: Lara Dâmaso: exercise in facelessness (public), Kunsthalle Wien 2025, Foto: Paola Lesslhumer
