TONSPUR 54: Candice Breitz (RSA) & Alex Fahl (GER) - Vanitas Medley

TONSPUR 54: Candice Breitz (RSA) & Alex Fahl (GER) - Vanitas Medley

Date: Sep 3 to Nov 24, daily from 10am to 8pm
Opening: Sep 2, 5pm
Venue: Tonspur_passage
Free admission

\"If I would have listened to the naysayers, I would still be in the Austrian Alps yodeling...\" Arnold Schwarzenegger

In this found voice montage, Breitz and Fahl weave together fragments of advice from a range of motivational speakers and wealth gurus. Get-rich-quick tips offered by professional wealth coaches-as well as by high net worth individuals such as Donald Trump and Arnold Schwarzenegger-are cut together in deliberately absurd succession. The voices vie with each other as they offer fast formulas for the attraction of wealth, agreeing unanimously that getting rich is a matter of following a few simple steps: with the right attitude and a bit of hard work, you too could be a self-made millionaire (regardless of your social and economic circumstances).
This inherently capitalist notion-the promise that any individual can ‘make it\'-rings hollow in light of the current worldwide recession, during which even in the USA (the birthplace of rags-to-riches optimism), social mobility has all but ground to a halt. The aggressive and manipulative chorus of wealth-preachers gathered here in medley evokes the unhealthy obsession with wealth that precipitated the current crisis facing speculative capitalism, even as the fast-paced edit parses and derides the fatuous promises of which the medley is composed.

The installation is completed by a series of seven posters. Each carries an image of a different skull, drawn from works of art made by Hans Holbein the Younger, Vincent van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami, Subodh Gupta and Damien Hirst. The skull has historically been a symbol of the brevity of life and of the inevitability of death. Here, the line-up of appropriated skulls offers a laconic counterpoint to the ebullient sound collage.


TONSPUR 56: Georg Klein (DE) N.N.

Date: Nov 25 to Feb 02, daily from 10am to 8pm
Venue: Tonspur_passage
Free admission


Part of the ORF Long Night of the Museums at MQ

www.candicebreitz.net
www.tonspur.at