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Sunday, January 31, 2016

“Political Populism” at Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier

Installation view: Political Populism, Kunsthalle Wien 2015, Photo: Jorit Aust: Flaka Haliti, Thendive, Grace, Rishika, Lefa, Kaden, Victoria, Nadia, Leo, Cyril, Mrs. Faye, Malrar, Josias, Ojas, Philip, Ernest, Ziyanda, Ledri, Amadou, Bayanda, Julien (Detail), 2015, Courtesy the artist
(link)

This is one of those times when the artworld's relation to its signs is confusing. That in an exhibition about the insidious means of political populism, should - if we harbor any belief that not all art is inherently "good" -  signal an alert towards the populist and attractive in art, skeptical of the art's likeable means, as any productive critique must be reflexive. But then the PR weirdly reads these symbols at face value, the blue filled Ikea bags as migrant hopes for better skies, and so much other technically sophisticated looking art and politicized symbols but never that this selection of it here may be the demagoguery of art.


see too: Simon Denny at MoMA PS1