Biography / Version 4
The Army of Love, initiated by Ingo Niemann and later developed further by Dora García and many others, advocates for a fair distribution of love in the face of patriarchal and neoliberal structures, as well as rising racism and fascism. The „soldiers of love“ strive to share unconditional love with those who need it and are open to an exchange with those who wish to give love. The army provokes the possibility of a discourse on love as a resource for social change.
Friederike Feldmann is a painter and drawer. She studied visual communication and stage design in Bielefeld and Berlin. From 2008 to 2012, she was a professor of painting at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, and since 2012, she has been a professor of painting at Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin.
Dora García is a multimedia artist working in performance, video, text, and installation. In her works, the investigation of the paradigms and conventions of art is a central moment, focusing on the importance of access and legibility. Often, texts and stories serve as the basis for scenarios that raise complex questions of ethics and morality. Some of her recent solo exhibitions include: Somewhere, Two Planets Have Been Colliding for Thousands of Years (The Thinker as Poet), La Verrière, Brussels (2017); Écrits at Michel Rein, Paris (2017); and I See Words, I Hear Voices, The Power Plant, Toronto (2015).
Manfred Grübl represents a broad concept of art. His diverse work spans installation, performance, photography, video, and sculpture, pushing the boundaries of these media. Grübl intervenes in public space, turning viewers into active participants in his art. His approach is characterized by the idea of art as a subjective, immersive experience—one that is not a static object in space but rather an act of interaction and communication.
Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński is a Vienna-based artist and writer. As part of her PhD-in-Practice, she is working on the project The Non-Human. The Believer. The Alien. Unsettling Innocence, in which she confronts three scenes from Austrian history with approaches from U.S. Black Studies.
Linda Klösel studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is a freelance writer, editor, and a member of the Public Relations Office at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She has conceptualized and carried out projects such as Art, Music & Environment (together with Gertraud Presenhuber) and Version (together with Manfred Grübl). Her publications include: Birgit-Jürgenssen-Preis 2004–2013 (2013) and Georg Kargl – Fine Arts since 1998 – BOX since 2005 (2006).
Alexander Kluge is one of Germany’s most versatile intellectuals, working as a filmmaker, writer, and media theorist. His body of work—spanning literary and analytical books, films, and television series—crosses genres and has received numerous awards. He became known as one of the most influential figures of the New German Cinema, which he co-founded and helped develop both in theory and practice.
Hugues Mousseau studied music, philosophy, and political science in Paris. Since 2000, he has worked as an independent musicologist in Berlin.
Ingo Niermann is a writer and editor of the Solution series, published by Sternberg Press. His debut novel, Der Effekt, was published in 2001. His recent books include Solution 257: Complete Love (2016), Solution 264–274: Drill Nation (2015), and Concentration (2015). In collaboration with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Niermann launched the digital publishing project Fiktion. In 2016, he initiated the Army of Love and, together with Alexa Karolinski, produced a video of the same title, which was presented at the 9th Berlin Biennale (2016).
François Roche New-Territories is a polymorphic architectural entity. Founded in 1993, it serves as an overarching structure for various labels, names, strategies, and objectives. New-Territories is represented by an androgynous, transgender avatar, _S/he_, who authorizes François Roche to write, speak, and teach on their behalf—as a personal secretary, as Ariadne’s thread in an ectoplasmic system and paranoid mind. In 2012, New-Territories established a laboratory in Bangkok to explore political science/fiction and disturbing robotics in architecture. Recent exhibitions include the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018), Echigo-Tsumari (Japan, 2018), and the Chicago and Istanbul Architecture Biennales (2015). Solo and group exhibitions have been held at institutions such as MAM, Paris; SFMOMA, San Francisco; ICA, London; Frac, Orléans; Barbican, London; Tate Modern, London; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; and MUDAM, Luxembourg.
Stefan Sandner is a visual artist living and working in Vienna and a member of the artist band Albers. His solo exhibitions include Galerie der Stadt Schwaz, Kunsthalle Krems, Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna, American Contemporary, New York, Galerie Grita Insam, Vienna, Art Statements, Basel, Museum 52, London and New York, Secession, Vienna, and Grazer Kunstverein. His group exhibitions include Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna; 21er Haus, Vienna; Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen; Künstlerhaus – Halle für Kunst und Medien, Graz; Prague Biennale; and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt.
Zack Saunders is the founder of *ARCH[or]studio*, an „anti-office“ engaged in investigative architectural design and experimentation, as well as text- and concept-based art projects at the intersection of architecture and theory, illustration, and product design.
Christian Schwarzwald is an artist working with drawing and installation. His idea of drawing is concerned with an open, unrestricted structure of drawing that questions, depicts and repositions our visual systems of the present. He lives in Berlin and Vienna, where he teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Salvatore Viviano is an artist born in Palermo, currently living and working in Vienna. After a career as an actor in France, he accidentally encountered the artist collective Gelitin, which led him to move to Vienna and shift his artistic practice in a new direction. Since then, he has been performing and exhibiting internationally, with shows at Albertina, Vienna; Belvedere, Vienna; Belmacz Gallery, London; 21er Haus, Vienna; Kunsthalle, Vienna; MiArt, Milan; Artissima, Turin; and Greene Naftali de la Ville de Paris. From 2014 to 2018, Viviano ran the One Work Gallery at Vienna’s Getreidemarkt.