EVENT LANGUAGE: GERMAN.

The performance and media artist Oliver Hangl has two interlocutors work together on a block of clay parallel to the exchange of opinions. The conversation pieces (since 2021) are conceived as a series in which a sculptural collective work is formed from clay mass in conversation. The procedure of holding and speaking, kneading and listening is reminiscent of strategies of respectful communication and speech techniques and demands the utmost concentration. Socially and culturally explosive topics are thus brought to negotiation and worked on linguistically as well as manually.

Traditionally, a conversation piece in 18th and 19th century genre painting is the depiction of a feast, a gathering of people in action or conversation. In the theater of the 19th and 20th centuries, the conversation piece also depicts coming together in dialogue. Bourgeois, witty and funny, it always hovers, however, in the danger of remaining mere convention.

For the audience, the juxtaposition of the clay conversation pieces and their audible disputes raises the question of the extent to which attitudes, opinions, and disputes become visible and readable in the jointly formed object. How, then, does speaking and thinking affect what we do?

Registration required: k48@olliwood.at