unter flaschen.
Die Fledermaus in der Bar du Bois

The past is not over. lt can be rediscovered and visited in archives, but there are some things that call out to be revived. A reactivation or updating of this kind, in multiple acts, was recently experienced by the legendary Cabaret Fleder­maus. For six years (1907-13), it was a venue for emancipatory and escapist tendencies in Vienna. But then it was closed and later destroyed, and its experimental program feil into oblivion. However, its pioneering artistic design has lived
on in memory across the decades. In 2019, in the context of an international collaborative effort, the Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna was able to produce an exact stylistic reconstruction of the cabaret's celebrated bar room.

Bar du Bois is an artists' collective that has existed in various formations since 2013. Bar du Bois (engl. a bar made of wood) is literally also a bar. A bar on the move. Its furniture is built by artists and it is run by artists. Bar du Bois is thus also a social place. The group's work established itself in contrast to recognizable artistic authorship and involves an examination of the commodity fixity of the art market and the history of the white cube. Rather than such established standards, Bar du Bois believes in the composed jumble of the artistic collective. They celebrate the patchwork and frenzy that animates ideas and brings social monads together. No design task is too insignificant for them - from ashtrays to bottle openers, bar stools to door handles - each element is commissioned from different artists* in their network. Thus, from a historical distance, they also refer to the design fetishism of the Wiener Werkstätte, whose love of detail was notorious. The work of the group established itself in contrast to the recognizable artistic.

With the exhibition unter flaschen. die Fledermaus at Bar du Bois, the artist* group Bar du Bois was asked to perform a special form of updating in another act.

In addition, in 2019 different aspects of the historical Cabaret Fledermaus were investigated with students of the University of Applied Arts (Class Sculpture and Space / Hans Schabus) in the context of a course by Eva Engelbert with Bar du Bois, artistic strategies of de-/reconstruction or actualization of history were included, and questions were raised about possibilities of constructive escapism.