Opening TURNING PAGES & Lecture Diedrich Diederichsen AURA AND ADDRESS

Name: Opening URSI FÜRTLER: Textile—Abstract
Start: 2026-03-17T19:00
End: 2026-03-17T21:00

The book as an artistic medium plays a central role in the work of of artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Milena Büsch, Ed Ruscha, Isa Genzken, as well as many contemporary young artists in the Austrian and international scene.

Books are used as instruments to design poetic visions and to expand concept art. The artists’ books in this exhibition initiate dialogues about gender roles and socio-political questions. At the same time, books are a form of cultural memory and commemoration. Against the backdrop of the digital world, artists experiment with the medium of the book and transcend traditional boundaries of image, text, and material.

Tue, 30.9.2025 6 pm — 9 pm

MAK Columned Main Hall

Registration closed

Selfie Portrait by Diedrich Diederichsen

The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication Turning Pages. Artists’ Books of the Present. With the publication, the MAK is part of the interdisciplinary Creative Europe project AbeX

CURATOR:
Bärbel Vischer, Curator, MAK Contemporary Art Collection

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6 pm
Lecture Diedrich Diederichsen
AURA AND ADDRESS
An artist’s book derives its appeal both from its aura as artistic object and from its addressability as communication—two normally mutually exclusive concepts are thus, after all, revealed to be compatible. In this context Diederichsen poses the question as to whether artists’ books so defined are especially suited to disseminate and mediate a very particular type of knowledge that in other contexts fails to show to advantage.

Essayist, cultural critic, curator, and journalist, in the 1980s Diedrich Diederichsen was editor of Sounds and Spex magazines. Since 1992 he has taught university courses in such locations as Frankfurt am Main, Pasadena, Offenbach, Munich, Weimar, Gießen, Gainesville (Florida), St. Louis, Los Angeles, Vienna, and Bremen. From 1998 to 2007 he taught at the Merz Academy, Stuttgart, and from 2006 to 2024 was Professor for Theory, Practice, and Communication of Contemporary Art at the Institute for Art and Cultural Studies of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. His latest book is the essay collection Das 21. Jahrhundert [The 21st Century] published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch. He lives in Berlin.

Please register for the lecture

Followed by
the Opening of TURNING PAGES. Artists’ Books of the Present

Free admission to the lecture and the opening

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Logo AbeX

The exhibition TURNING PAGES: Artists’ Books of the Present, along with its supporting program and the accompanying publication, is part of the interdisciplinary Creative Europe project AbeX, funded by the European Union.

Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The opening takes place in context of the VIENNA DESIGN WEEK

Vienna Design Week 2025