Graz/Austria, 19.09.2024

In the historic building of the Universalmuseum Joanneum, it presents itself as an alternative museum of national complexes full of dark phantasms and combines works and objects from the various collections of the Universalmuseum Joanneum with works by contemporary artists. Guided tours and discussions with experts will be offered during the festival and beyond. The exhibition will be on display until mid-February 2025.

A cooperation between steirischer herbst ’24 and Neue Galerie Graz

Today’s Universalmuseum Joanneum was founded in 1811 as an Enlightenment-era museum with an educational function, the Joanneum was the center of what historian Benedict Anderson calls an “imagined community.” As Anderson argues in his inspirational book of the same name, all nation-states as we know them are inventions, works of collective imagination by the educated class. Museums, as well as novels, newspapers, and theater plays, are sites of these construction works.

In this world of imaginary states, the one the Joanneum represented was especially ephemeral: Styria was a province rather than a state, although at some point in history, during the Renaissance, Graz was the capital of a territory called Inner Austria that included parts of current Italy and Slovenia. The museum’s founder, Archduke Johann (1782–1859), strongly promoted local patriotism over the even vaguer identity of a large multiethnic empire. Still, in a surprisingly universalist way of thinking, he stressed the necessity of learning from all countries — notably in the area of crafts and technologies — and structured the museum as a catalog of achievements worthy of study.

The curators of the exhibition are particularly interested in the later history of the Universalmuseum Joanneum, in which, as they describe it, it was “characterized by tensions between the local and the cosmopolitan”. In the 1880s, it developed into a prestigious museum of ‘high’ art. However, a section dedicated to everyday rural life was also established in 1913. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the institution turned towards German nationalism, which made the so-called ‘Anschluss’ possible. In the 1950s, the ‘Trigon’ biennial saw a return to the historical confederation of Inner Austria on a purely cultural level, whose successor states had long since been absorbed into the divided world order of the Cold War.

“National museums are haunted houses. Established by empires and states that have long since ceased to exist, they served to construct and confirm national myths. Even if the world is constantly changing, former delusions of grandeur and petty grievances of the past are often still at play there. The exhibition Horror Patriae offers a humorous yet critical alternative to conventional national museums and explores the darker side of patriotism in all its forms and all over the world“, say the curators of steirischer herbst.

Referring to this and many other local and international stories, the curators design an alternative museum of national complexes and dark fantasies with Horror Patriae: Is this museum of dysfunctional and contradictory nationalities the only way to imagine a national museum in a time like ours, where patriotic feelings are positively received, even if they have a dark side? The exhibition, divided into several fictional sections, combines works and artifacts from the various collections of the Universalmuseum Joanneum (Neue Galerie Graz, Alte Galerie, Schloss Trautenfels, History Museum, Folk Life Museum at the Paulustor, Natural History Museum) with works by contemporary artists, including many commissioned works.
 

Artists

Sarnath Banerjee, Renate Bertlmann, Anna Boghiguian, Sergey Bratkov, Pablo Bronstein, Madison Bycroft, Ieva Epnere, VALIE EXPORT, Peter Friedl, Robert Gabris, Tomislav Gotovac, Assaf Gruber, Jan Peter Hammer, Thomas Hörl, Jakub Jansa, Nikolay Karabinovych, Alina Kleytman, David Kranzelbinder, Ingo Niermann und Erik Niedling, Paulina Ołowska, Michèle Pagel, Hannes Priesch, Roee Rosen, Daniel Rycharski, Marko Tadić, Helene Thümmel, Piotr Urbaniec, Andreas Werner.

From the collection of the Neue Galerie Graz

AES+F, András Felvidéki, Wolf Gössler, Drago Julius Prelog, Hans Werner Poschauko, Paolo Tessari, Norbert Trummer, Franco Vaccari and more.

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Horror Patriae

Opening: 19.09.2024, 6 pm

Duration: 20.09.2024–16.02.2025

Curated by Ekaterina Degot, David Riff, Pieternel Vermoortel
Consultants: Ulrich Becker, Ulrike Hausl-Hofstätter, Eva Maria Hois, Herwig G. Höller, Günther Holler-Schuster, Birgit Johler, Karin Leitner-Ruhe, David Nayer, Wolfgang Paill, Barbara Porod, Barbara Seyerl
www.steirischerherbst.at
www.neuegalerie.at

Program

19.09., 18:00: Vernissage with music by Mélange Oriental
20.09., 11:30–15:30: Artist Talk (in English) with Pablo Bronstein, Marko Tadić, Madison Bycroft, Jakub Jansa, Helene Thümmel, Piotr Urbaniec, Jan Peter Hammer, Roee Rosen
25.09., 2.10., 9.10., 23.10., 6.11., 20.11., 17: 00: Expert Talks with Hans-Peter Weingand, Ulrich Becker, Birgit Johler, Clemens Ruthner, Herwig G. Höller, David Kranzelbinder

You can find further information and DOWNLOAD IMAGE MATERIAL here: HORROR PATRIAE 

and here: steirischerherbst.at/press

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Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!

With best regards

Daniela Teuschler
+43/664/8017-9214, daniela.teuschler@museum-joanneum.at

Stephanie Liebmann
+43/664/8017-9213, stephanie.liebmann@museum-joanneum.at

Eva Sappl
+43/699/1780-9002, eva.sappl@museum-joanneum.at

Georg Hartwig
+43 316 823 007 65, hartwig@steirischerherbst.at