LISA MORAVEC
Writer, curator, critic, editor, lecturer,
body practitioner
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specialised in the intersections of the performing and visual arts
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Curating Art and Performance
​Begin Suddenly In Splendor. Rose English: Performance, Presence, Spectacle
solo exhibition​, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, 5 July 2024 - 2 Februar 2025.
(co-curated with Marijana Schneider, Museum der Moderne Salzburg)
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The Museum der Moderne Salzburg is presenting the first comprehensive exhibition in the German-speaking world of works by the British artist Rose English. Born in 1950 in Hereford, English developed her unique working methods in the UK in the midst of the conceptual art, dance and feminist scenes of the 1970s. Today, she is one of the most influential performance artists. Her extraordinary, interdisciplinary oeuvre combines elements of theater, circus, variety and opera in order to explore themes of gender politics, the identity of the performer and the metaphysics of presence—the very nature of being a performer.
This exhibition will use multimedia installations to provide an insight into English’s unique method. Her early involvement with ballet and dressage, whose common roots lie in European Baroque, led to English developing her famous feminist dance performance Quadrille (1975) and her performance with a horse My Mathematics (1992). Three of her major stage performances will be shown in public for the first-ever time in the form of a new site-specific installation.
A specially commissioned performance program will accompany this exhibition, with performances by younger international artists whose work is related to English’s artistic practice.
A publication at DISTANZ in German and English versions will accompany the exhibition.
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4-Part Performance Programme, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, July 2024 - Nov 2024.
--Esben Weile Kjaer, COLLIDER! (I want to believe the second act), 27.7.
https://www.museumdermoderne.at/en/events/detail/i-want-to-believe-the-second-act-collider/
--Nina Beier/Bob Kil, Boyfriend, 15.8.
https://www.museumdermoderne.at/en/events/detail/boyfriend/
--Raphaela Vogel mit Juliane Liebert und Daniel Roth, 'Where is the f*ing anchor of Charon?', 10. 10.
https://www.museumdermoderne.at/en/events/detail/performance-where-is-the-fing-anchor-of-charon/
--Philipp Gehmacher, 'The Things of the World (For Rose)', 7.11.
https://www.museumdermoderne.at/en/events/detail/the-things-of-the-world-for-rose/
(co-curated with Marijana Schneider, Museum der Moderne Salzburg)
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"A Tale of Two Cities", photographic work by Wolfgang Lehrner and Giovanna Silva, Galerie Zeller van Almsick, part of Photo Wien, Vienna, 31 May - 8 July 2023.
https://www.fotowien.at/en/ausstellung/a-tale-of-two-cities-foto-wien-2023/
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'(Art)Activism in the 21st-Century', event, Belvedere21, Blickle Kino, Vienna, 12 November 2022.
Screening Programm: Gerald Nestler, Countering Capitulation (2014); Forensic Architecture, Model Zoo (2020); Vladan Joler, New Extractivism (2021)
The event was framed with a panel discussion between Nestler, Joler, and myself.
https://www.belvedere.at/event/kunst-aktivismus-im-21-jahrhundert
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Dramaturgical Input
Theory and outside eye, March 2022-December 2022
Georg Blaschke’s dance piece ‘Extinct Choreographies’, Vienna, Seestadt.
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Artistic Support
Sophia Süßmilch, solo exhibition SANATORUM SÜßMILCH, Landesgalerie Linz, 2023.
https://www.ooekultur.at/exhibition-detail/sophia-s%c3%bcssmilch
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Curating Discourse ​
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Curated by (Vienna's International Gallery Festival), autumn 2024
Focus: Artists’ Archives and Estates
The program of this year Curated By is also dedicated to the topic of artists’ archives and estates. Two new formats will take place as part of the festival’s Fokustage. https://curatedby.at/focus
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---EXPERT TALK SERIES (hybrid podcast format)
As part of the festival’s discursive format, the curators of the gallery exhibitions will be in dialogue with art historians. These conversations will focus on the challenges of art historical evaluation and practices of making visible the archives and estates of the presented artists. Artistic strategies of (self-)archiving will also be discussed, as well as the role that art critics, galleries, and museums play in these processes. These conversations will take place live in the galleries. They will later be available as podcasts on our Website, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2hvCaDtPnHxKxlhkeM0aLk?si=xd5x0MQTSOeshkWVndt2ww​
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--SYMPOSIUM
'Artists' Archives and Estates', Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 5 October 2024
Curated and Organised together with the Österreichisches Forum für Vor- & Nachlässe bildender Kunst
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This year, Vienna’s annual gallery festival, Curated By, is accompanied for the first time by a symposium, focused on artists’ archives and estates. It provides a public forum to investigate the relationship between art objects, cultural institutions (galleries, museums), art historians and universities. It builds on Noit Banai’s notion of “untold narratives” and delves into questions such as: What should artists consider when they archive their work today in the digital age? How and why do certain artistic bodies of work [do not] become significant to cultural institutions, such as galleries and museums? And what surplus value does a critical and selective practice of analysing and historicising contemporary art add to art objects and collections? The panels and the concluding roundtable discussion of the symposium address established practices of institutionalising and historicising contemporary art to envision more symbiotic collaborations across the actors of the art world. The day will focus on the following issues: the practicalities of archiving; the politics of historicising and collecting; and the maintenance, circulation, and exhibition of artists’ pre-estates.
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'Posthumanist Approaches to a Critique of Political Economy: Dissident Practices'
Technical University Vienna (Visual Cultures)/Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien
co-organised with Carmen Lael Hines, with international artistic and academic contributions, 4 December 2023.
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‘Dance & Performance: Histories of Feminist Practices’
With artists and academics, London Senate House, co-organised with Josephine Leask, keynote by Dr. Sarah Gorman (invited speaker), 17 June 2022.
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‘Love Spells: Rituals for Another World’
Co-organised with Lilly Markaki, online, Royal Holloway, 28-30 May 2020.
https://lovespellsrhul.wixsite.com/2020/symposium-programme
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‘On Criticism’
Royal Holloway, University of London/Central School of Drama and Speech
Co-organised with Clio Unger and Josephine Leask
keynote speakers Prof. Dr. Sabeth Buchmann and Dr. Duška Radosavljevic, 23 November 2018.
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- - Talks
‘Glitch, Glitschen, Glissade’
talk by Christina Jauernik in dialogue with Lisa Moravec,
part of university-wide event series 'Everywhere it is Machines', Royal Holloway, 27 May 2021.
- - Participatory Workshops
‘Art as political praxis’
Workshop, part of the Joseph Beuys exhibition at Belvedere 21, Vienna, 4 May 2021.
‘Balancing Arts and the Everyday’
Organised a workshop run by Prof. Dr. Alexandra Kolb, funded by the University of London Fund, Royal Holloway, 21 May 2021.
‘Writing about dance’
Tanzquartier, Vienna 25 June 2018, https://tqw.at/tqw-doc-2/
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Live Performances
with Club Fortuna
--- New Balance, Schauspielhaus Wien, part of Sägezahn-Festival, 14 April 2023, Vienna.
--- opening performance, Kunsthaus Graz, 25 May 2023.
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Live dance performance, ‘Rehearsing: Moving Together/Apart'
With Dr. Sarah Blissett & Philip Leitner, 8 December 2019, as part of Philosophy Unbound, Studio Thor, Brussels.
https://philosophyunbound.tumblr.com/post/189352653427/philosophy-unbound-25-program
Reading of my poems
No Bounds Radio, London, 2020.
--- ‘Witches’
--- ‘Prometheus’