As part of its Meet-the-Curator series organised by Max Mueller Bhavan, in Indiranagar, a seminar on contemporary art was conducted by Austrian curator Kathrin Rhomberg on July 28. She started off with screening a documentary, Foreigner’s Out! Schlingensief’s Container. Made by late German filmmaker Christoph Schlingensief and styled on the international reality series from UK Big Brother, the film draws parallels between the show’s contestants who are locked in together for the duration of the series and Jews in concentration camps. The documentary was deemed highly controversial when it released in 2001 by Freedom Party of Austria. Rhomberg discussed the prevalence of right-wing nationalism and how it interferes with artistic growth in her country.
The documentary was followed by a feedback session where the discussion dwelled on how contemporary art thrives within its socio-political paradigm.
“Anything can be defined as contemporary art. It encompasses all creativity,” said Rhomberg.
Having studied art history and archaeology; Rhomberg was curator at Secession, a museum in Vienna from 1990 to 2001 and headed an archaeology project Kolnischer Kunsteverein in Koln from 2002-07.
With many artists claiming to be following the ‘contemporary’ genre, it’s difficult to differentiate those belonging to modernist and post-modernist ages. “The end of the cold-war could be pitched as the point which marked the emergence of contemporary art,” clarified Rhomberg.
Details like these helped participants like Niranjan, an independent photographer and an art enthusiast, better understand contemporary art through the seminar.