From 8 November 2017 until 28 January 2018, Vienna’s Kunsthalle hosted an exhibition titled Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox 1989–2017. This exhibition forms one of the reference points for Dunst’s project at the House of Art and which he is calling Publishing as an Artistic Toolbox: C.
The project’s concept is based on the idea of twin references: What is tactics and what is an exhibition’s system, and towards what materials and references (ideologies) does the form of representation lead?
Dunst has prepared a spatial installation whose central aim is not just to communicate with the viewer, but also to engage in a dialogue with the space itself. Using fragments of various materials – industrially produced pink Austrotherm pads (which were also used to cut out the large letters), depersonalized items from everyday life, drawings, and murals – he creates an environment that, within the system of textual references on the walls, references the aforementioned Vienna exhibition and engages in a kind of poetic conflict with a different level of meaning. Dunst thus asks the question as to what this evokes within the experience of perceiving art itself. He believes that this question relates to the ongoing discussion regarding museums, exhibiting, and the politics of meaning.
