MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

ART PROTECTS YOU is a vow.

It is a vow that of course also includes all manner of potential irony and subversion, thereby also making it a disavowing vow, a self-disclaiming declaration. He doesn’t set much store by guarantees. Traar is a man of intervention and of the strategically staged irritation. His area of operation is the urban space, where everything rolls back and forth on established tracks and each city dweller has his designated role. Traar’s original point of departure was sculpture, but through various transformation phases of his work till the present, he shifted this focus to the cultural universal of structure. In 1995 Traar spent time in Los Angeles as one of the first MAK-Schindler Scholarship recipients, which gave him ample opportunity to study one of western society’s biggest urban conglomerations in its functionality and dysfunctionality.

The climax of this sojourn came in 1996 with his final project. Since then, Jochen Traar and MAK have enjoyed a close programmatic and cooperative relationship, having bonded inseparably through the principle of interventionism. Nevertheless, it isn’t as if Traar were a MAK agent – as James Bond is to the British Secret Service.

WITH HIS CYCLICAL WORK-SLOGAN THAT PROCLAIMS ART’S PROTECTIVE POWER, IT WOULD SEEM AS IF TRAAR WERE TO ACCOMPLISH A DAILY MISSION OF AVERTING CALAMITY, BUT HIS ARE OF AN  UTTERLY DIFFERENT NATURE THAN THE PYROEROTICALLY STAGED MISSIONS IMPOSSIBLE. TRAAR’S INTERVENTIONS AIM AT PROCESSES OF AWAKENING, I.E. AT BRINGING THE URBAN SUBCONSCIOUS TO THE SURFACE, RENDERING IT PERCEPTIBLE, MAKING IT CONTROVERSIAL.

In this artistic endeavor he combines geopolitics with a broader concept of psychoanalysis and civilization history with criticism of ideology. His is an area of operation of eminent importance. Particularly in times like these.

Peter Noever

Biographical notes about Jochen Traar

1960 Born in Essen (D)

1960-1979 Childhood and youth, St. Kanzian Klopeinersee, Austria 

1979 Maturity, BRG Völkermark 

1979-1984 He studied Sculpture at the Academy of FIne Arts in, Vienna, Master Class

with Prof. Bruno Gironcoli

1993 Artist at UMAS, Durham, Ontario

1994 Romstipendium

1995-1996 Fellowship at MAK Schindler Center, Los Angeles

1997-1998 Los Angeles

1999-2002 Project “friends of the night”, Vienna

2002 Studio in St. Veit im Jauntal

Selected works

2010

HEIMAT/DOMOVINA, MMKK Klagenfurt (A)

METAPOLISM. Urban matters, CCA Plovdiv, Bulgaria (BG)

2009

The dream of a thing, Università di Arti Applicate/University of Applied Arts, Vienna (A)

ART PROTECTS YOU, ÖKF Berlin (D)

2008

play2be.at, Cardinal Square Klagenfurt (A)

K08, MMKK, nuova Piazza e area urbana/New Square and urban area, Klagenfurt (A)

ART PROTECTS YOU, Berlin showroom (D)

2006

changing territories, Galerie der Stadt Wels 

(con/with Michael Kienzer) (A)

Until today, MMKK Klagenfurt (A)

I shall illuminate the dark side of the moon, Belgrado (SCG)

2005 

Double Feature, Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt (A)

con/with Michael Kienzer

2004 

No Man’s Land, Künstlerhaus, Vienna (A)

Vienna Transport, Vienna Museum (A)

Reserve of the form, Künstlerhaus Wien (A)

ART PROTECTS YOU, studio Berndt, 

Wolfsberg (A)

1999 

Letter Trilogy III, Canal Grande Venezia/Venice (I)

1997

Letter Trilogy II, Vienna, 

and MAK Vienna’s Ringstrasse (A)

1996

Letter Trilogy I, Los Angeles, (USA)

SCI-Arc, autostrade/freeways Los Angeles

(USA)

PROMOTORI XFAFX
Università degli Studi di Ferrara
Facoltà di Architettura di Ferrara

PATROCINI EVENTO

Österreichisches Kulturforum / Forum Austriaco di Cultura di Milano 
MLB home gallery, Ferrara

SOSTENITORI GENERALI XFAFX
AHEC American Hardwood Export Council
Casalgrande Padana
Il Casone
Lithos Design
Pibamarmi
Giuseppe Rivadossi
Viabizzuno

SOSTENITORI ISTALLAZIONE
Provincia di Ferrara

Comune di Ferrara

SPONSOR TECNICI ISTALLAZIONE
F.lli Casetti strutture e serramenti metallici
Assicurazione La Fondiaria SAI - Agenzia Bargellesi e Tartaglia, Ferrara

PATROCINI E COLLABORAZIONI XFAFX
Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali
Regione Emilia Romagna / Provincia di Ferrara
Comune di Ferrara
ADI / SITdA / CNA 
Ordini Architetti, Pianificatori Paesaggisti e Conservatori
Province di Bologna, Ferrara, Forlì-Cesena, Modena, 
Piacenza, Ravenna, Reggio Emilia, Rimini, Rovigo, Verona

PARTNER XFAFX
Fassa Bortolo
Libria
Nardi
Sannini