Biography / Version 2

AO&
is an artist collective consisting of Philipp Furtenbach, Philipp Riccabona, and Thomas A. Wisser. The artists live in Vienna and realize site-specific projects in both urban and rural environments. The collective works with a wide range of conditions, which they alter temporarily or over longer periods. Through this process, they develop settings, spatial sequences, and processes that create exceptional conditions for habitation, communication, and production.

FATIH AYDOĞDU
is a visual artist, designer, sound artist, and curator. He lives and works in Vienna and Istanbul. His work explores socio-political aspects of media spaces and aesthetics, identity politics, migration, and linguistic concepts. He is a member of the curatorial team at amberPlatform in Istanbul.

ALEXANDER BRODSKY
began his studies in 1968 at the Moscow Art School, continuing in 1972 at the Moscow Architectural Institute. From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, he was part of the Russian „Paper Architects“ movement along with Ilya Utkin. In the 1990s, Brodsky focused on artistic work in graphics, sculpture, and installation. He moved to New York in 1996 and became increasingly established in the art world. In 2000, he founded his unconventional architecture studio in Moscow. In 2010, he received the Kandinsky Prize, one of Russia’s most prestigious art awards.

ÖVÜL Ö. DURMUSOĞLU
is a curator and writer living in Berlin and Istanbul. As a member of the Goethe Institute, she organized several conferences and programs as part of Maybe Education and other programs for dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel. Durmusoğlu has published in catalogs and magazines such as WdW Review, Frieze, and Flash Art International. In 2013, she curated Near, Closer, Together: Exercises for a Common Ground for Sofia Contemporary and was part of the curatorial team for the 13th Istanbul Biennial.

MANFRED GRÜBL
works with an expansive definition of art. His versatile practice includes installation, performance, photography, video, and sculpture, extending the possibilities of these media. Grübl intervenes in public space, turning audiences into active participants in his art. His approach is characterized by a conception of art as a subjective, immersive experience—an interaction and form of communication rather than a fixed object in space.

NILBAR GÜREŞ
is an artist who studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and currently lives and works in New York. With a focus on gender and cultural identities, she explores, among other themes, the role of Muslim women in both public and private spaces, as well as their relationships with one another. Through drawings, collages, performances, videos, and photographs, she exaggerates the norms of mainstream society and confronts them with hybrid stagings of female identities.

DIDI KERN
began playing in marching bands in Upper Austria during his childhood and rose to prominence in the 1990s through bands like Fuckhead, Pest, and Bulbul. His performances and tours have taken him to Japan, Australia, and the United States. In addition to drumming, he works in electronic music and is a passionate DJ. He has performed with: Marco Eneidi, Marshall Allen, Martin Siewert, Paul Lovens, Ava Mendoza, Franz Hautzinger, Aaron Carl, Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson, Juini Booth, Konono No.1, Oren Ambarchi, Leonid Soybelman, Mayo Thompson, Christof Kurzmann, Rhys Chatham, Ben Frost, KK Null, Weasel Walter, among others.

LINDA KLÖSEL
studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is a freelance writer, editor, and staff member in the Public Relations Office at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She has conceived and carried out projects such as Art, Music & Environment (with Gertraud Presenhuber) and VERSION No. 0-2 (with Manfred Grübl). Publications include: Birgit-Jürgenssen-Preis 2004–2013 (2013), Georg Kargl – Fine Arts since 1998 – BOX since 2005 (2006).

BRIGITTE KRATZWALD
is a social scientist focused on alternative economic and societal models such as solidarity economy, commons, and subsistence, as well as the potential for social transformation. She speaks at panels, gives lectures, and leads workshops and seminars on these topics. She is part of the organizing team of the Elevate Festival and the Commons Summer School in Thuringia and is active in various self-organized projects.

TINA LEISCH
is a filmmaker, writer, theater practitioner, and political activist based in Vienna. For years, she has created theater experiments in socially conflict zones: including Irrgelichter im Spiegelgrund – Eine Desinfektion (2004), Date your destiny (2006), Medea bloß zum Trotz (2007), and Schneid deinen Ärmel ab und lauf davon! – Cin ci baj taj nas!, (2009). Her staging of George Tabori’s Mein Kampf with residents of a men’s shelter earned her the Nestroy Prize in 2003. Her first feature-length documentary, Gangster Girls (2008), filmed in the Schwarzau women’s prison, received special mention at the 2008 Viennale. She co-founded kinoki, Volxtheater Favoriten, and the Persman Association. Her documentary Dagegen muss ich etwas tun (2009) portrays resistance fighter Hilde Zimmermann.

MELANIE OHNEMUS
is a curator, author, and editor living and working in Vienna. From 2006–2007 she was curator at the Secession, Vienna, and from 2007–2011 at Portikus, Frankfurt on the Main. At the Secession, she curated exhibitions with Judith Hopf, Julie Ault and Martin Beck, David Lamelas, and co-curated Shandyismus. Autorschaft als Genre, with Helmut Draxler. At Portikus, she worked with artists including Paola Pivi, Michael Beutler, Haegue Yang, Rachel Harrison, Martha Rosler, Dan Graham, Wade Guyton, Frances Stark, Mathias Poledna, Morgan Fisher, and Sergej Jensen. From 2007–2011, she co-created the performative exhibition project Salon des Arts with Tanja Widmann. Since 2011, she has worked independently (exhibitions with Lena Henke, Stefan Thater, and Nina Könnemann) and publishes on art and culture.

PHILIPP QUEHENBERGER
Born in 1977 in Innsbruck, Austria, he has played in numerous bands and, since 1994, performed solo at festivals including Sonar, Avanto, Club Transmediale, Mutek, and Wien Modern. He has released on labels such as Cheap, Editions Mego, Laton, Ego Vakuum, and Taliban Records. His latest album Content will be released in July on Editions Mego.

SAPROPHYT
From 2008 to 2012, Barbara Kapusta and Stephan Lugbauer ran the experimental exhibition space Saprophyt in Vienna. The program focused on installation-based and ephemeral practices. In 2010, the project Projects and Assignments was developed in collaboration with Andrew Berardini. In 2012, Josef Dabernig transformed Saprophyt into a cinema space, screening works by Katharina Aigner and Mathias Windelberg, Katrin Hornek, Isa Rosenberger, and Tanja Widmann.

OCTAVIAN TRAUTTMANSDORFF
lives in Vienna and, since the late 1980s, has addressed social mechanisms and behavioral patterns using assemblage, experimental photography, and film techniques referencing historical sources. His installation Zu Wohnung e.g. collapsed the inventory of a supervised social apartment into itself and was shown at the Frankfurter Kunstverein and the Berlin Biennale (2001), among others.

CLAUDIA CAVALLAR
is an architect based in Vienna, primarily engaged in with furnishings and living. Her only publicly accessible project is the Bar Tabacchi in Vienna. Soon, visitors can rent space in Markt 67 – WE Share Our Home in Weiden am See. Her work explores the unnoticed, the accidental, and the familiar in architecture.