Backyard Economy

Münze Österreich, kinebar® 1g, 999.9, Ruffoni

Location: University Gallery Heiligenkreuzerhof, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Sala Terrena, ground floor, staircase 7, Schönlaterngasse 5, 1010 Vienna
Location: Tiny Mutual Admiration Societies, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Painting Department, 6th floor, room 626, Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna
Opening Hours Sala Terrena: Wednesday–Saturday, 2–6 p.m., free admission, wheelchair accessible
Opening Hours Tiny Mutual Admiration Societies: Monday–Sunday, 12 a.m.–8 p.m., December 8–January 15 2022, free admission, wheelchair accessible
November 11: 6–8 p.m.: Conversation & Screening with Melanie Gilligan

economy (n.)
οἰκονόμος (i.e. "household management")
οἶκος ("house; household; home")
νέμω ("manage; distribute; to deal out; dispense")

The group exhibition Backyard Economy, which is the result of a seminar at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, presents contemporary artistic explorations of the forms of social reproduction, which are fundamental for the economy of global capitalism but remain largely invisible within it. The title quotes two super-8-films by Martha Rosler from 1974, Backyard Economy I and Backyard Economy II (Diane Germaine mowing), in which the artist draws an intimate connection between reproductive and artistic labor. The exhibition takes such early Marxist-feminist perspectives and practices of institutional critique as its point of departure and relates them to contemporary conditions. The works on display deal with motifs of the peripheral and of exclusion, thereby exploring dynamics that arise between forms of representation, the engagement within the conditions of (aesthetic) production, and the effects of institutionalization. They address interactions of valorization and devaluation, exploitation and profit both inside and outside the art field. By questioning binary constructions, gender-specific codifications, and colonial imprints at work in reproductive labor, value production, and property relations, the artistic works devote themselves to tackling quite persistent clichés.

With contributions by:
adO/Aptive collective, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, Tiffany Domke, Laura Egger-Karlegger, Samuel Ekeh, Andrea Fraser, Melanie Gilligan, Karrabing Film Collective, Elly Niebuhr, Laura S. Oyuela Flores, Marshall Paul, Lucie Pia, Falke Pisano, Martha Rosler, Alfred Soulek, Constantina Zavitsanos, Ella Zwatz

Lucie Pia’s contribution is on view at Tiny Mutual Admiration Societies
University of Applied Arts Vienna, Painting Department, 6th floor, room 626a Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna

Invited by Stefanie Kitzberger and Jenni Tischer
sponsored by the Danubian Bank

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