To what extent has exhibition nowadays become inseparable from the announced performance program happening on the opening evening, once or multiple times during the running time of the exhibition, or at least at its closing?
Concerned with the performativity of the exhibition itself, curator and artist Aaron McLaughlin presented one of the Still Making Art iterations, the format that was found already back in 2013 as a duo project, and from 2018 it functions as a curatorial output of McLaughlin himself; this June, its eighth edition found place in THE HALL. PART International Art Residency Austria.
As a „Host“ for the evening, standing right at the entrance, Cross Collar Sadness (2025) by Jonas Morgenthaler, exaggerated collar spreading its tips all the way to the floor. As if taken from a boy’s shirt, turned into a costume-like object, held by the music stand, indicating the notion of staginess, spread throughout the whole exhibition.
The chairs were placed to separate the “stage” from the audience. Before Zhana Ivanova’s Borrowed Splendour (2007/2026), the performance space was already laid out with clear precision. Boundaries marked, and the exact positions for props and performers indicated by numbers and letters. Ivanova spoke first, explaining that the performance is based on a prescribed situation, guided by precise instructions coming from her and her assistant. Performers needed to act on given instructions in the very moment they heard them, meaning the performance was not rehearsed in advance. Three performers dressed in shirts and pants with pockets came on the stage. The artist and assistant started giving them clear tasks. For twenty-five minutes, the three performers did what they were told to do.
“ … appear distant in your thoughts”
“ Tense your muscles”
“ Imagine you can move him with your eyes”
“ appear friendly”
“ think violent thoughts”
“ experience mixed feelings”
“ walk casually…”1
The loose narrative appeared, the conflict that could be of a romantic nature, then the very randomness of carrying on the tasks is back again. The thread of the tension between the “roles” is lost, shifting, and makes us, the audience, be aware of everything that happens additionally and around the “role” they carry. It feels as if we are witnesses to the process of directing the play, the movie. In some moments, performers as if waiting to be photographed, between takes, a power experiment. Suggested narrative, successed and failed over and over, until shaken off. The scenography stays behind with tables, chairs, casual cigarettes, and whisky glasses lying around.
Found curtain rails, colored in gold, carrying many little objects; they appear as flying. Positioned very high and in the corner of the room, Light Laundry II (2025), work by Jonas Morgenthaler. Grotesque in the air. The scale of the rails is so small compared to the rest of the room, and the rails carry the curtain structures covering the walls intentionally. Morgenthaler’s rails miss the curtain and could appear as a toy, as a prop, as a piece of scenography.
In three positions across the room. Between the curtains on the walls. Bells, or “hybrid bell objects, “The Happy Long Hour (2026) by Julian Siffert. In primary colors and silver, remind me of old bells we are never allowed to touch as children, the ones found in the school, old residential buildings, and theater halls. The Happy Long Hour (2026) is a one-hour and six-minute-long piece. The bell sounds and then silence, played from loudspeakers on loop.
Under the sign “DER KUNST” on the top of the building of PART, dating back to the late nineties century. STINA FORCE (ongoing/2026), a one-woman punk band, Fors immediately made clear to us as the audience that even though she is behind the drums, we should not focus on music today. That this is indeed performance art, it’s art, she says, pointing to the sign above her. “DER KUNST”. She called the stairs in front of her a “river” between her and the audience. Pointing out the visible distance. Since her performances are never recorded in length with the idea to make them preserved to be watched later, she really connects with the audience and adapts to the situation, improvising her way in what feels as if letting us in her head and then back out.
“…this is not a beauty context…
She says… not Jesus
… Are you drunk?
fall into me…
I am giving away all the jokes today
(fake laugh)
… Inhale and exhale, did we find focus together?”2
She made me watch the trees around, in the direction she watched them, she made me think this is what she meant to do and be, I followed the rhythm.
Exhibition Still Making Art Eight effectively confronted a strong sense of relocation, perhaps also displacement, and force, within the traditional exhibition structure. Relocation of the power in making one’s own decision; of the objects and bodies during Ivanova’s performance, the exact and peculiar placements of the sculptural works by Siffert and Morgenthaler. The feeling of relocation of the voice of Stina Fors, as part of her ventriloquism acts during the STINA FORCE performance. Not arbitrarily, the exhibition will turn itself to a PARTy on the 26th of June. Celebrating the year of existence of the PART International Art Residency program.
Exhibition: Still Making Art Eight
With works by Stina Force, Zhana Ivanova, Jonas Morgenthaler, and Julian Siffert.
Curated by: Aaron McLaughlin (curator in residence)
Venue: THE HALL. PART International Art Residency Austria
Duration: 06 June – 26 June 2026
Opening hours: June 12, 13, 19, and 20: 3 – 6 PM, and by appointment: welcome@partresidency.at
Address and contact:
PART International Art Residency Austria
Meiereistraße 3, 1020 Vienna
www.partresidency.at
www.instagram.com/partresidency
