Face to Face with Monument #2014


“Face to Face with the Monument”

a project by Chto Delat with invited guests

commissioned by Into the City – a program of Vienna Festwochen Festival

Co-curating by Wolfgang Schlag Dramaturgy Birgit Lurz

Concept and execution of installation Iris Andraschek, bankleer, John Barker, Luigi Coppola, Ines Doujak, Olga Egorova/Chto Delat, Werner Fenz, Eduard Freudmann, Mischa Gabowitsch, Marjana Gaponenko, Nina Gasteva/Chto Delat, Jochen Gerz, IRWIN, Alfredo Jaar, Tomas Zierhofer-Kin, Erich Klein, Wolfgang Kos, Martin Krenn, Chor des KSŠŠD, Hubert Lobnig, Ernst Logar, Oliver Marchart, Mieze Medusa, Suzana Milevska, Nikolay Oleynikov/Chto Delat, Aliona Petit/Chto Delat, Oliver Ressler, Schwabinggrad Ballett, Nora Sternfeld, Heidemarie Uhl and others.

***

Production Wiener Festwochen In co-operation with Hundsturm/Volkstheater Wien, Department of Architecture and Urbanism/University of Art and Design Linz, Institute of Political Science/Vienna University, Wien Museum, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, ost klub, Rudolf Steiner-Schule Wien-Mauer

Chto Delat invites people of Vienna as well as local and international artists to reflect on the significance that should be ascribed to monuments, memorials and established structures within a culture and policy of commemoration in relation to our awareness of history. Are not monuments such as the »Heroes’ Monument of the Red Army« in Vienna’s Schwarzenbergplatz expressions of an obsolete culture of memory? How can a policy of commemoration empower individual groups of the population to develop their own rituals that assign importance to specific spaces?

For five weeks, the installation Face to Face with the Monument by Chto Delat will transform Schwarzenbergplatz square into a forum: the »unknown soldier« is to descend from his monument and, as an alienated sculpture, will become an artistic part of the installation. A large poster wall that changes every week will showcase works by different artists. Sound walks, performances, lectures and keynote speeches, a postcard project and mediation programmes taking the form of a collectively designed mural as well as dance workshops will be offered on-site; »Park Radio« will feature live reports.

face to face - english_full

The Newspaper “What is monumental today?” was published on the occasion fo the Chto Delat project in Vienna at Schwarzenberg Platz (May-June 2014)


Face to Face with Monument – the documentation of the project

User manual to teh square:
1. Study The Paper Soldier
and
2. Wake your inner Paper Soldier up
3. Visit history (in red container)
4. Take an audio tour
and
6. Evoke your ideological traumas
6. Ascend the tower through the forum
7. Use telescope to face the face of the Unknown Soldier.
8. Run down (carefully)
9. Engage with the mural
10. Visit library /white container/– study display “Transformation of monumentality”
pick up your own copy of project newspaper there

11. Free time (suggestions): seat at the forum discuss your experience with strangers, take a book and seat at the café, read the newspaper, listen to the radio, text friends to come….

click here for the documentation of the festival 


The display – Transformation of Monumentality

click here for the documentation of display  

the story of paper soldier