„I hope that my pain­ting has the im­pact of gi­ving so­meo­ne, as it did me, the fee­ling of his own to­ta­li­ty, of his own se­pa­ra­ten­ess, of his own in­di­vi­dua­li­ty. “ (Bar­nett New­man)„The sim­pli­ci­ty of the sub­ject lies bey­ond the strugg­le that tears it apart and that, wi­t­hin man, set the ‚I‘ [moi] against the 'non-I' [non-moi]. The­se strugg­les do not break up the unity of the ‚I', which – when pu­ri­fied of all that is not au­then­ti­cal­ly hu­man in it – is gi­ven to peace with its­elf, com­ple­tes its­elf, clo­ses on and rests upon its­elf.“ (Em­ma­nu­el Le­vinas, On Es­cape)What can be taught in art? Emo­ti­ons, lan­gua­ges, re­li­gi­ons. But they are sub­ject to ex­pe­ri­en­ces and tra­di­ti­ons. Is the­re any au­to­no­my in art at all? Sur­veil­lan­ce, ter­ror and eco­no­mic de­pen­dence de­ter­mi­nes our li­ves - of­ten un­con­scious­ly. In or­der to free our­sel­ves from the­se in­flu­en­ces, to over­co­me them and to re­co­gni­ze them, we need ‘the other’ ac­cor­ding to the phi­lo­so­pher Em­ma­nu­el Le­vinas. Only through him can we me­dia­te our au­then­tic self at all. It is only through him that one can ex­po­se his ex­pe­ri­en­ces and li­mits. “moi non-moi” is a se­ries of ex­hi­bi­ti­ons that will take place over the year 2017. The se­ries has al­re­a­dy star­ted in Vi­en­na ex­hi­bit­ing the ar­tist Chris­toph Mei­er, at the be­gin­ning of the year and re­cent­ly with Wal­ter Vo­pa­va. The in­spi­ra­ti­ons of Le­vinas’ thoughts are also con­nec­ted with the Pro­ject that ta­kes place in Athens du­ring April. In the Athens ex­hi­bi­ti­on "moi non-moi” Amer Ab­bas and Ste­fan Bid­ner have in­vi­ted more than 40 ar­tists from Vi­en­na and Greece. The selec­ted ar­tists deal with the com­plex re­la­ti­ons­hip bet­ween the I and the other in their works. Ab­bas and Bid­ner show ar­tists, which are brea­king down the walls of tra­di­tio­nal in­sti­tu­ti­ons and aca­de­mic dis­cour­ses. Ar­tists, who have seen the batt­le, that ma­king art is crea­ting the self and wal­king to the other. Their vi­si­on is to feel art and live art, away from bo­ring in­sti­tu­ti­ons; se­ar­ching for a mo­ment of an ex­tra­or­di­na­ry event, of an unusu­al spi­rit in clas­si­cal ar­tis­tic me­dia like sculp­tu­res, pain­tings, films etc. They do not crea­te wi­thout ta­king into ac­count their own plea­su­re. They act to­tal­ly in­de­pen­dent­ly from cur­rent sty­les and moods, cont­ri­bu­ting in very free ways to rea­li­ty, new li­ving exis­ten­tia­lism in sho­w­ing its ab­sur­di­ty and alie­na­ti­on. They are mar­king the wound left-be­hind by the act of the do­mi­na­ti­on hap­pe­ning in our li­ves. Their works are con­fron­ting the spec­ta­tors with brea­king li­nes of their own con­ti­nui­ties. The art­works are a new dis­cour­se: how we put our self and the others in re­la­ti­on, whe­re it hap­pens, from whe­re it co­mes... ar­tis­ti­cal­ly spo­ken on how we crea­te truth. The drawings, sculp­tu­res, in­stal­la­ti­ons, vi­de­os and per­for­man­ces are all dif­fe­rent, but they all give the spec­ta­tors a spe­ci­fic roll to re­de­fi­ne them­sel­ves. It is the sta­te (role?) of art to show the dis­tan­ce to the self and the other. The selec­ted ar­tists also have in com­mon a pro­crea­ti­ve ex­ch­an­ge bet­ween Vi­en­na and Athens. Ar­tists from Vi­en­na were in touch with ar­tists from Athens and vice ver­sa. In the Athens show and hope­ful­ly also in the Vi­en­na Edi­ti­on we try to ex­pand this high­ly pro­duc­tive ex­ch­an­ge. ‪„moi non-moi‪“ in Athens is an oc­cur­rence and should sup­port the ar­tists‪, af­ter they have brea­thed the air of their ac­tua­li­ty in both ci­ties, to re­place thoughts, ori­en­ta­ti­ons, be­liefs and break through the usu­al and stan­dard. Be­fo­re this in­ter­play, Greek ar­tists were most­ly pre­sent in Ber­lin, Pa­ris or Lon­don. Now Vi­en­na de­ve­lops a strong ex­ch­an­ge with the Greek art sce­ne.(Amer Ab­bas for “moi non-moi” Athens Edi­ti­on, 2017)aísthēsis manifestusPa­per doe­s­n't blush!The shame­l­ess lo­ans­harks, the po­li­ti­cal­ly in­ca­pa­ble, the bullhea­ded fun­da­men­ta­lists, tho­se ma­no­eu­vring geo­po­li­ti­cal­ly, the smooth-ope­ra­ting tricks­ters are all abusing pa­per’s pa­ti­ence and they sei­ze the im­po­tent ma­te­ri­al with their frau­du­lent in­ten­ti­ons. The free ra­di­cals and the ra­di­cal­ly un­free take po­si­ti­on and what lies in bet­ween crus­hes in a mist of lies. Dead meat is han­ging like ali­ve from Cer­be­rus’ claws. Blood is be­co­m­ing the ink with which his­to­ry is writ­ten. Like long time ago, books are drow­ning in a sea of fire. What is no­te­wor­thy cir­cu­la­tes wan­de­ring in spi­rit in the un­writ­ten books of only a few. Ca­thar­sis is wait­ing in line of the un­con­scious con­scious­ness. The pa­ti­ent pa­per turns yel­low and the last hope of re­cor­ded truth lies on art, to strip the dark mat­ter from its power. Let the spi­rit of Goya be with us!And now - more than ever - let us car­ry owls to ATH€NS!Je t´aime ... moi non plus(ste­fan bid­ner, WAF, vi­en­na/​athens, 2017) Share