What all the world thinks impossible
(from The Abductionfrom the Seraglio, Act III, Aria 17, Belmonte)
Kuffner Sternwarte, Johann-Staud-Straße 10, 1160 Wien
Opening June 21, 2006, 7 pm
Duration June 22 - July 30, 2006
Curators Araba Evelyn Johnston-Arthur and Nora Sternfeld
“… considered it his duty, to tell the story against the grain.”
Walter Benjamin
Johann
Ranusch, Josef Reiske, Franz Osterwitz, Nikolaus Rock: These are the
names of four Black people who, just during the period of Mozart’s
short life, were registered as having died in the hospital of the Order
of the Barmherzigen Brüder in Vienna’s second district. Until now,
there has never been an exhibition in which they were mentioned.
Configuration III, What all the world thinks impossible,
asks questions about what, to date, have been almost invisible living
realities. It is concerned with the violent and powerful effects of
significant fictions: it is dedicated to, amongst other things, the
bloody realities in which the fantasies about “the Others” have real
consequences, and define, mark and delimit real lives and names. The
powerful nature of these effects will be described from the perspective
of individual life (survival) strategies. What will be examined is how
Black women, men and children in 18th century Vienna resisted and how they developed forms of breaking out and persistence.
One of the starting points for looking
for traces is the former Weißgärber suburb in today’s third district of
Vienna. It was there, in the year 1768, in Kirchengasse 38—today’s
Löwengasse/Radetskyplatz—that Angelo Soliman moved after a secret
marriage to Magdalena (neé Kellermann), his white wife, and his
resultant dismissal from the services of Prince Liechtenstein.
On the18th
of December 1772, his daughter Josephine Soliman was born. When, after
his death, Angelo Soliman was stuffed and exhibited like an exotic
animal in the emperor’s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities—alongside
a six-year-old African girl whose name was thought to be unknown,
Joseph Hammer and Pietro Michaele Angiola—it was his daughter,
Josephine Soliman, who attempted to oppose this outrage and demanded a
proper funeral for her father. The present video work by Belinda Kazeem
and Claudia Unterweger, both researchers in the group dealing with
Black Austrian history, are involved with the traces of Josephine
Soliman embedded in today’s Weißgerber district as well as their
contemporary significance.
The
story of these hidden hi/stories is inscribed in the present, an
Austrian present that is characterised by a field of tension: the
extreme visibility of black people as criminalised, sexualised and
exoticised other objects who are talked about stands in
direct contrast to the complete invisibility of Black, self-determined
positions and definitions. How can Black Austrian history be told in a
context where black people have been marginalised objects at best and,
in historical writings, do not count as subjects?
With an exhibition that throws light on contemporary emancipatory
perspectives of Black Austrian history, Configuration III’s programme
of events is dedicated to the subject of Orientalism and an actionist
project that connects Joseph II’s edicts of tolerance with utilitarian
considerations. It focuses attention on those sections of 18th
century Viennese society that have gone down in history simply as
“figures” or “objects”—a historical narrative that has almost never
been described or defined in another way right up to the present. In
addition, there are specially planned workshops that are designed to
examine the logic of historical writing in the present and to thematise
strategies for countering racism and anti-Semitism. On the one hand, a
further emphasis lies in questions relating to minority alliances and,
on the other, consideration is given to self-definition at the present
time.
The location in which these questions will be discussed is the Kuffner Sternwarte (Observatory) in Vienna’s 16th district. The history of Moriz von Kuffner’s family, the founders of the observatory, can be traced back to the 18th
century. At Mozart’s time one of the ancestors of the family—Jehuda
Löb—lived in Moravia. As a consequence of the edict of tolerance issued
by Joseph II, the Jewish population was forced to take German names.
Thus Jehuda Löb was given the name Kuffner. Two centuries later, the
Kuffner Observatory was expropriated by the Nazis, occupied by the
NSDAP and used for the party’s political purposes. Moriz von Kuffner,
the owner, was forced to emigrate. By locating the event here, the
story of hidden Black Austrian history will be inscribed into an
Austrian present. It is a present in which the Nazi era and its
continuities are hidden using various strategies, especially in
everyday concealment. How does one tell of Black Austrian history in a
post-Nazi context in an Aryanised building? To write oneself into
contemporary Austrian history means refusing to blend out the history
of the Nazi era.
In many ways the exhibition What all the world thinks impossible
breaks with these invisibilities and makes publicly visible those
counter-hi/stories and possible counter-concepts that were largely
unseen before. Nevertheless, in view of the many painful questions that
remain open, writing and narrating Black Austrian history means being
continually confronted with the fact that the writing of history also
has a history. A history of concealment and a history of violence. To
consider this history in an exhibition means also saying this, and
asking how Black Austrian history was hidden until now.
It is in this sense that the exhibition is dedicated to the excavation
of hi/stories but not without thematising the strategies of
concealment. Simultaneously, emancipatory talking back—as
coined by the Afro-American cultural critic bell hooks—unasked for
verbal comment, is always at the forefront of the process. The
necessity of making self-determined Black subject positions audible and
visible is reflected in the central approach of the exhibition concept.
Taking this into account, Hip Hop and Rap are regarded as
artistic-level tools of counter-narrative praxis so as to tell
counter-hi/stories from a contemporary perspective and also provide an
anchor for them.
(c) 2006 by Verborgene Geschichte/n - remapping Mozart.
This web site was made by DFKT with Joomla!. Joomla! is Free Software
released under the GNU/GPL
license.
“… considered it his duty, to tell the story against the grain.”
One of the starting points for looking
for traces is the former Weißgärber suburb in today’s third district of
Vienna. It was there, in the year 1768, in Kirchengasse 38—today’s
Löwengasse/Radetskyplatz—that Angelo Soliman moved after a secret
marriage to Magdalena (neé Kellermann), his white wife, and his
resultant dismissal from the services of Prince Liechtenstein.
The
story of these hidden hi/stories is inscribed in the present, an
Austrian present that is characterised by a field of tension: the
extreme visibility of black people as criminalised, sexualised and
exoticised other objects who are talked about stands in
direct contrast to the complete invisibility of Black, self-determined
positions and definitions. How can Black Austrian history be told in a
context where black people have been marginalised objects at best and,
in historical writings, do not count as subjects?
The location in which these questions will be discussed is the Kuffner Sternwarte (Observatory) in Vienna’s 16th district. The history of Moriz von Kuffner’s family, the founders of the observatory, can be traced back to the 18th
century. At Mozart’s time one of the ancestors of the family—Jehuda
Löb—lived in Moravia. As a consequence of the edict of tolerance issued
by Joseph II, the Jewish population was forced to take German names.
Thus Jehuda Löb was given the name Kuffner. Two centuries later, the
Kuffner Observatory was expropriated by the Nazis, occupied by the
NSDAP and used for the party’s political purposes. Moriz von Kuffner,
the owner, was forced to emigrate. By locating the event here, the
story of hidden Black Austrian history will be inscribed into an
Austrian present. It is a present in which the Nazi era and its
continuities are hidden using various strategies, especially in
everyday concealment. How does one tell of Black Austrian history in a
post-Nazi context in an Aryanised building? To write oneself into
contemporary Austrian history means refusing to blend out the history
of the Nazi era.
In many ways the exhibition What all the world thinks impossible
breaks with these invisibilities and makes publicly visible those
counter-hi/stories and possible counter-concepts that were largely
unseen before. Nevertheless, in view of the many painful questions that
remain open, writing and narrating Black Austrian history means being
continually confronted with the fact that the writing of history also
has a history. A history of concealment and a history of violence. To
consider this history in an exhibition means also saying this, and
asking how Black Austrian history was hidden until now.
