Publisher's Synopsis
Touch the Reality showcases concepts and practices that transfer artistic work into a socio-political domain and how they employ an aesthetic of the performative, artivism, and the public space in the process.To what extent do contemporary performance practices affect a repoliticization of art and society? How can a discussion of these issues access new territories? How can new forms of articulation evolve in a direct exchange with artistic practices?A cause of present day conflicts, according to philosopher Jacques Rancière, can be found in an ambivalent understanding of democracy, which possesses a growing potential for conflict, as current political developments illustrate.A focus of this book and the exhibition, is the exchange between the Cuban artists José Fidel García, Grethell Rasúa, Dania González Sanabria, and Susana Pilar, who reside in Vienna for three months, with Vienna-based artists in the development of joint projects.The curator and editor Ursula Maria Probst examines numerous interventions in relation to one another and in pursuit of today's practices of political performance. What effect can art have today and what means of articulation does it possess in the face of current fields of conflict?In 2015 Ursula Maria Probst curated the Austrian contribution to the Havana Biennale and researched the art scene in Cuba.English and German text.
