Film Presentation and Panel Discussion: "Kunst als Vorwand" und Kunstmuseen als Kontaktzonen

In his 1997 essay of the same name, the ethnologist James Clifford defines museums as contact zones. He developed this concept from an encounter of a group of indigenous Tlingit with the things stolen from their community, to which the curators of the Portland Museum of Art - the institution in whose collection the things were kept due to their theft - had invited them. This encounter, embodied by the Tlingit group, reveals an alternative object constitution of things and fundamentally challenges the hegemonic nature of the museum context.

MATHILDA is a group of former children who grew up in this system and today, contrary to the prevailing reception, draw attention to the context of production and the presence of violence in Muehl's art. For the exhibition "ON STAGE - All the Art World’s a Stage", the group was invited for the first time to contextualise a work by Otto Muehl for the mumok.

Panel discussion: Curator Rainer Fuchs talks with the group MATHILDA and philosopher Elisabeth Schäfer about their contribution to the exhibition "Kunst als Vorwand", about the function of art in the "Mühl-Sekte" and about art museums as contact zones. Elisabeth Schäfer is co-editor of the publication "Gewalt der Bilder - Bilder der Gewalt", an anthology that brings together recontextualisation strategies and developments of a critical perspective on art from contexts of violence.

In preparation for the discussion at 19.30h, the mumok will show the award-winning film "Meine keine Familie" about the Friedrichshof commune from 17.30h. The director Paul-Julien Robert was born in the commune in 1979 and is a founding member of the group MATHILDA.