Archive Austria
VIENNA FOR ART’S SAKE!

Contemporary Art after the Turn of the 21st Century

In October 2013 Peter Noever handed over more than 160 artworks to Luciano Benetton, Collection Luciano Benetton, after a collaboration process of more than one year. Fine art, architecture and design was understood as a unified whole, with an eye to the immanent simultaneity of artistic expression. It is about an explicit interest in manifestation of the present, in art that generates a context and has the ability to intervene in society’s collective consciousness.

We invited more than 100 artists, architects and designers—personalites who work in this city, who present their work here, or who have left a lasting mark here (thus encompassing all artists of this cultural sphere and beyond to the greatest possible extent). To take part in the touring exhibition and catalog of the “Luciano Benetton Collection 10 × 12”.

Everybody was provided with a canvas 10 × 12 cm and asked to nominate one additional personality to be included. Finally over 160 art works were recieved in total. Such a network gives a rise to a unique system of relationships with its own interlinked, internally manifested culture.

This also renders the process of the contemporary artists’ (self-)selection transparent, with the connections between the pertinent individuals clearly visible. This in itself produces surprising and entirely new information on the composition and quality of this artistic community (apart from, and in contrast to, the usual rankings and other such popular valutations).

Curator: Peter Noever
Project manager and assistant curator: Tanja Lipp
Collection Luciano Benetton

[…] One of the projects that I’m working on is a personal project of Luciano Benetton: “Vienna for Art’s Sake! Contemporary Art in Vienna after the Turn of the 21st Century.” The objective is to arrive at a new perspective on international contemporary art production by smashing and distributing the role and power of the curator among the artists, architects and designers. I have already invited over 100 individuals from all over the world, and they will invite 100 more themselves. For me, the challenge is to simultaneously see things that aren’t readily apparent: it’s about uncovering structures, about using my perch here in Vienna as the springboard for a new perspective. The result will be seen in a traveling exhibition that will visit a number of cities in Europe and America. […]

Interview with Peter Noever in “Iskusstvo – The Art Magazine”, 4/2013, Moscow

Participating artists, architects and designers (not final!)