Iké Udé, Work from the "Cover-Girl"- series, 1994-1997, Photography

Cindy Sherman, Untitled (Post Card Series for Comme des Garcons), 1994 , Photography

Regina Möller, regina-magazine LIFESTYLE Art between Fashion, Design, Styling, Interieur

In the 1980's the term "lifestyle" acquired importance in different contexts. Coined by the social sciences and highlighted by marketing strategists of the advertising business, "lifestyle" became an identifying word among the like-minded of the Yuppie generation. The Dinks (=double income, no kids) met each other for a drink after a sixteen-hour day and recognized each other from their clothing with the accepted brand-name labels.

In the 1990's announcements of increasing unemployment, economic depression and ecological disasters broke the bond between work, money and beauty. With Grunge depressive music arrived on the pop-culture scene; in 1994 Beck sang "I'm a loser, baby, why don't you kill me?" on all the radio stations. No longer the depiction of new money and its attributes, but the undermining of economic values through the aesthetics of the ugly, kitsch, worthlessness, but also the simple, the obvious became a lifestyle in the contemporary retrocult, one that contrasts sharply with the previous "lifestyle".

Today, in the age of its disappearance, this term marks a basic reorientation of society. The friendship between economy and aesthetics has been terminated. The crisis of this "lifestyle" is not only a question of style, but also of the central, emotional and communicative cohesion of a society defined as a consumer society. Individual concepts of life and social understanding have become more difficult to articulate, that's how much the complexity of meaning and the speed of the encoding and recoding of goods have increased.

In this situation, it seems natural to ask artists - specialists in the relationship of aesthetics and society - how they deal with this on an artistic level in their work. The answers were diverse. Because modern art has been experimenting with the borderline between art and everyday culture since the beginning, be it to raise life into the "synthesis of art forms" or, to the contrary, to have art give up its borderline to life time and time again. Transitions and contrasts, parallelism and rejections, monopolization, reinterpretation and irony can be found on the palette of relationships, in which the aesthetics of art can relate to the aesthetics of everyday life. Beween art and "lifestyle" there is an inescapable love-hate relationship, a paradoxical union and a bond to paradoxicalness: Art must, in order to be art, disassociate itself from other aesthetics, but simultaneously always go beyond its limitations. The incompatibility of both these rules leads to a flirtation, war and their neverending blending. In the exhibition "Lifestyle" artists confront the paradoxes in their relationship to everyday life and allow us to look at their love and hate relationships to the beauty of everyday events.

On the ground floor, a lounge puts you in the right mood for the exhibition. Magazines and journals on the subjects of fashion, architecture, design are displayed. The most different posters and flyers form a documentary cross-section. The lounge is furnished with usable furniture-sculptures by artists: leather benches by Michelangelo Pistoletto (I), leather sofas by Stefan Kern (D), a white armchair, a table and two chairs by Can Yasargil (CH), the blue cushions by Hans Kupelwieser (A) and the yellow reading buoy by Rainer Ganahl (A/USA).

A group of female artists "Die Damen" (A) has contributed photographs for a calendar for the Austria Tabacco Company, two members of "Die Damen" (Birgit Jürgenssen, Ingeborg Strobl) can also be seen with works on the first floor. Ona B. created a poster for the company Skiny Bodywear in the outer room.

One can see Iké Udé's (USA) work "Covergirl", a series of reconstructed magazine covers. Udé looks into the media's potential for exclusion, especially of Lifestyle magazine. With his own magazine "aRUDE" he realizes his ideas for a cultural publication. Samples of the magazine "regina" by Regina Möller (D) are also displayed. In its formal lay-out "regina" is the spitting image of a conventional ladies' journal. Its content, on the other hand, takes a critical look at similar topics while focusing on another main theme.

The artist group CALC (A/CH) has installed their project TIMEcloud in the foyer of the Kunsthaus after premiering in Biella near Turin at the "Progetto Arte" with Michelangelo Pistoletto. This fiberglass polyvinylchloride larva serves as "Internet-architecture". The visitors can only enter TIMEcloud II as a virtual experience, via internet, on the monitor in the foyer. Via the computer installed inside, the virtual visitor can send pictures, texts and statements to the Kunsthaus. In this way, the larva TIMEcloud II turns out to be an interactive sculpture of the cyber age.

Diverse video work can also be seen in the foyer: a fashion show for the fashion group Strenesse Group by Haim Steinbach (USA), a video and an artistic poster by Peter Gersina (D). In 1997 Gersina founded the service "westArt: FIRST AID for BAD ART" and since then have looked after potential "art victims" at large cultural events in all of Europe with a team of psychologists, doctors and art historians. Sylvie Fleury (CH), who took part in the walk-in sculpture on the third floor, shows the video "Beauty Case".

Basement level

The colouring of the cuboid seat designed by CALC with the architect duo Koeppel/Martinez (CH) was influenced by Pipilotti Rist (CH). The colours correspond to her videos. Pipilotti Rist creates video art, to which she partly writes the music herself. Her experimental style mixes video-clip aesthetics with visual defamiliarizations and picture distortions. The program alternates between these videos and video work by Sylvie Fleury.

First floor

Here we find pieces of work by artists that explore the bordering zone between art and advertising, between art and fashion. These artists take ideas and pictures from the media making them unfamiliar and ironical. At the same time, advertising uses ideas from the world of art in order to appear innovative and new time after time. An increasing mixture of culture and economy can be observed; the relationship between fine art and advertising represents a progressive convergence and fusion. Artistic production serves the sensual foundation of the economy, at the same time culture is increasingly judged according to economic factors.

Cindy Sherman's (USA) large-formated photographs were used by a large fashion concern in Paris as a model for an advertising campaign (see ground floor). By using costuming, masks and arranged backgrounds the artist creates new mysterious scenes around herself time after time. Even though she doesn't copy a model directly, a high value of recognition is achieved by having Sherman fill a role that the viewer knows. The depiction of her own person is never primary in these works, rather the unmasking of the clichés of femininity in our society.

Like Cindy Sherman, Yasumasa Morimura (Japan) uses himself as a model in his photography. He uses well-known "icons" from art history or from the world of movie stars. In restaging these pictures as accurately in detail as possible, he - being Japanese - exposes the the global influence of the European-American cultural industry at the same time. An additional irritation in his work is created by his slipping into female roles. Displayed are Morimura's photographs from the series "Actresses/Self-Portraits".

Ingeborg Strobl (A) displays an ensemble, in which by showing a see-through bodice with cermaic nipples and a postcard edition she makes reference to the marketing strategies of the female body used by the lingerie industry and makes us aware of the erotic aspect of clothing. Birgit Jürgenssen (A) works with references to her own body; she uses it as a projection surface for cultural codes and her critique of them. She questions the social constructs of femininity. In her photographs "Gummis" ("Rubbers") her body appears in a distorting mirror, the female shoe a fetish. Photographically distorted projections of the interior of a room are printed and presented on bed pillows as well as on bodices. She arranges the ensemble as "A Lady's Room".

Marie Legros (F) shows her video of a performance in Office by Sautter, a shop for designer office furniture in Bregenz's city centre. The performance took place as part of "Art in the City". The camera focuses on the feet of the artist who "goes over things". Especially for this exhibition, Halm Steinbach (USA) produced one of his typical wall shelves with small perfume miniatures (Jean-Paul Gaultier). These mini-flacons, originally created to help sales, have in the meanwhile become valuable collector's items. In displaying everyday objects in the museum, the artist has removed them from conventional viewing and given them new sculptural meaning.

Daniele Buetti (CH) works with photographs from fashion magazines; the aestetics of advertising photography is his source material. Using simple methods, he distorts the pictures, snaps them again and arranges them in a new way. In the actual sense of the word, he scratches on the surface of the high gloss magazine; the world of supermodels experiences a severe disruption by this.

FLATZ (D/A) puts himself into the scene of his posters. "Courage is good for you" is a work for the cigarette brand NIL; "The Golden Mastercard" is a backlit self-portrait. His sculpture "Mondrian", a painted motorcycle, represents another important group of the artist's works, the "Physical Sculptures". Erwin Wurm (A) created a series of photographs for a lingerie company. Wurm consequently follows his sculptural approach; receptacles play a special role in his work. Here pieces of clothing serve as hollow bodies, as a cover, which man fills with his body.

Flora Neuwirth (A) is represented with a pastel-coloured ensemble that picks out the basic module of design and colouring as a central theme. Neuwirth titles her works "fnsystems".

Jochen Traar (A/D) built an oversized Kleenex box for the exhibition. Within the box is a monitor with an Internet connection. Large-sized lamps shed an intime red light as the visitor puts together the "Perfect Woman" in every last detail per Internet.

Angela Bulloch (GB) offers her three big "Happy Sacks". She picks the exhibition situation in the museum itself as her theme; shielded by earphones, the visitor feels as if he/she were in the announced lifeclub rather than in a museum. Bulloch arranged the trendy techno and progressive House Music herself.

The photography of Natacha Lesueur (F) use food as a motif: The model's legs are not dressed in lace as it may seem, but in a pig's peritoneal membrane. The portaits show irritating vegetable arrangements.

Jochen Flinzer (D) records his "Greetings from Moriya" as embroidery on silk; like a tatoo on skin, the needle leaves a pattern on the material. The abstract patterns on one side have a concrete equivalent on the otherside. There is no front or back side to this piece of work.

Thomas Bayrle (D) displays three PVC coats from the 1960's with graphic cup and shoe motifs and contrasts these for the exhibition with wallpaper. The technique remains, but the motifs change significantly.

Second floor

This floor was designed by the Austrian artists Peter Kogler / Elfie Semotan, Franz West, Heimo Zobernig, Marcus Geiger / Stefan Bidner. The borderline between usable objects and purely artistic objects has been abolished. The furniture / objects find themselves in an experimental area of conflict, one between the exhibition situation and a commodity. Franz West and Heimo Zobernig furnished a café-restaurant in Vienna in this way. Moreover, West furnished the lecture hall for the Documenta X 1997 in Kassel with the chairs which have been placed here on this floor.

In an open situation and grouped around a functional bar (Geiger/Bidner), there are many table/chair groups (West/Zobernig) and a music podium (Franz West) as an invitation for social and artistic activity (music, readings). A video and objects from a musical performance by Iris Gerber (CH) can be seen.

On the opposite side, steel objects by Heimo Zobernig are positioned to create another experimental area of conflict between sculpture and commodity. Peter Kogler has created bodices for the entire body using his significant motifs pipes, ant, brain, which were presented in a fashion show. The bodices were photographed by Elfie Semotan, the photographs were printed digitally on three large-sized fabrics that divide the room. The flying female body, similar to Batwoman, defamiliarizes the room and produces a extravagant and, at the same time, puristic lifestyle atmosphere of the late 1990's.

Gerwald Rockenschaub (A) designed the walk-in sculpture erected here, which measures 12 x 10 x 4 metres. It was decorated by the artists John Armleder (CH), Sylvie Fleury (CH), the artist duo Markus Muntean / Adi Rosenblum (A) and Gerwald Rockenschaub.

The themes living and interior design have been taken up again using procedures typical of this kind of work. John Armleder displays light installations consisting of neon tubes and decorates two walls with mirror foil; the wall decorations with artifical fur and flame motifs stem from Sylvie Fleury. The artist duo Markus Muntean / Adi Rosenblum have added their video as well as sculptural works. From the roof-top gallery the visitor experiences a whole new view of the architecture of the Kunsthaus. Muntean/Rosenblum have placed their flame-motif here in its sculptural form.

With this project five artists realized their vision of a group exhibition in an experimental situation, as "Lifestyle" also is. Not every artist has contributed an autonomous piece of work, but together they have developed a piece of work as if they were on a real construction site, on which all work together to complete the building. This way of working corresponds to the tendency in contemporary art of joining together many things to a new whole. In the music business we speak of "sampling", which means creating a new piece of music from fragments.

The picture of an artist as a loner, who creates an original work out of his/her genius, seems to be out-dated today. Like in all the ages before us, art builds on its predecessors, today, in comparison to earlier, it cites them very consciously and openly. The produced works know how to dissassociate themselves from the reproach of eclecticism through their quality.

Poster Campaign

Corresponding to the intentions of many artists to leave the museum rooms and work in a public space, parts of the exhibition and events program like open-air cinema, parties with Audioroom Vienna, fashion shows have been moved to the city centre of Bregenz. Along with this concept a poster campaign was started, for which the Kunsthaus Bregenz brought together artists and companies that were interested in advertising in a somewhat different way. The Kunsthaus Bregenz has let large-sized advertising space (2.38 x 5.04 m) for the duration of the exhibition, suggested artists and coordinated their collaboration: Natacha Lesueur - Wolff Co., Erwin Wurm - Palmers Co., Peter Kogler - Wolford Co., Ingeborg Strobl - Skiny Bodywear Co. (lingerie), Gilbert Bretterbauer - Hämmerle & Vogel Co. (lace), Tone Fink, Marianne Greber - Josef Otten Co. (textiles).

City Light
City Light Ona B. (A) and FLATZ have created posters for an art campaign with backlit posters (City Light) that can be seen at 60 locations in Bregenz and the surrounding area: Ona B. for Skiny Bodywear, FLATZ for the Kunsthaus Bregenz.

 FLATZ for Kunsthaus Bregenz.

Woman, Man
Daniele Buetti, Plamen Dejanov / Swetlana Heger and Erwin Wurm intervene artistically in the House of Fashion Sagmeister (Römer Road). Buetti displays photography in the shop window display case, Erwin Wurm shows his work "Shopping: A pair put on one-hundred-eight pieces of clothing", in which he deals with the concept of sculpture, which he compare with commonplaceness. Dejanov/Heger display a light arrangement with lights from the 1960's ("Space Pearls").

The British artist group Tomato is organizing seven 10m²large advertising boards on Stadt Street. On the basis of video freeze frames, photographs and texts , the theme lifestyle, the conception and the architecture of the Kunsthaus Bregenz is critically analyzed. Tomato has been very successful in the 1990's in developing a distinctive language that is characterized by frankness and borderline crossings between art and advertising and the separate disciplines. They are commuters between the world of global concerns and their lifestyle products and the world of art and in this way create and preserve their independence in order to be able to develop new and unusual ways of looking at things and projects.

SupaStore

In a shop in the city centre (Office by Sautter, Römer Road), Sarah Staton (GB) has set up her "SupaStore" and offers economical products and multiples here by already successful as well as young, still unknown artists, like Damian Hirst, Abigail Lane, Nancy Spero, Georgina Starr. "SupaStore" is a work of art in the form of a shop, in which multiples and editions of principally young artists and designers, but also magazines, books and different articles are sold. Since 1993 "SupaStore" has been temporarily present in ten different places, like in New York, San Francisco and London.

"Lifestyle" has been sponsored by
ankünder, Bregenz - Bekaert Composites S.A., Fiberglas, Mungia-Vizcaya - GTS Electronics audiovisuelle Systeme, Klaus (Logo)- Hämmerle & Vogel, Lustenau Kaufmann Holzbauwerk, Wolfurt - Amt der Landeshauptstadt Bregenz - macom gmbh, Copycenter, Diepoldsau SG - Modehaus Sagmeister, Bregenz - Office by Sautter, Bregenz - Josef Otten, Hohenems - Palmers - Progress Werbung-Gewista, Bregenz - Skiny Bodywear, Götzis - Typico, Schrift-Bild-Service, Lochau - upa-unusual public address, Bregenz - teleport Vorarlberg Online, Schwarzach - Wolff, Hard - Zwing Raumausstatter, Lochau

Curator of the exhibition: Edelbert Köb
Assistants: Rudolf Sagmeister, Herbert Abrell
Text by: Herbert Abrell