Magic circle

By Daniela Brugger, Christiane Krejs, Katharina Brandl

Subjects: Witchcraft in art, Exhibitions, Feminism in art, 20.10 art and society: general, Modern Art, Witches in art, Themes, motives

Description: The exhibition Magic Circle investigates current feminist interest in the figure of the witch within contemporary artistic production. Our present time has become an arena for surging disputes about the notion of truth; keywords such as 'post-facticity' and the rise of populist strategies of simplification in the political realm evidence this development. Witch cultures provoked historically dissident forms of knowledge - and thus this interest of late in witches is also conceived as a vehicle to explore resistant knowledge and queer-feminist organisation models and their denunciations at a distance from the respective mainstream. Furthermore, the exhibition views the witch as a kind of hub, a departure point from which to chart different forms of social exclusion mechanisms: In post-Reformation Europe people the collective wanted to be rid of were vilified as a witch - often older women, homeless and poor persons, queer subjects. Exhibition: Kunstraum Niederösterreich, Wien, Austria (23.03. - 15.05.2018).